Telecom Egypt is taking centre stage in the market, reports Sherine Abdel-Razek No share has raised all this public interest. With comparatively limited public interest and awareness in stock market investments, the euphoria that Telecom Egypt's IPO stirred has been phenomenal. Around 200,000 Egyptians tapped the market for the first time to buy in the telecom giant and the effect was felt at all levels of the economy. The Egyptian pound was appreciated from LE5.76 to LE5.74 in one week, "backed by the demand for the currency by investors who wished to subscribe in the IPO," the Prime Securities weekly market report said. The trading week ending on 15 December witnessed the start of trading of Telecom Egypt the day before, on Wednesday. The stock managed to consistently steal the limelight. The stock, which started trading on LE15, shot to around LE30-LE25 on early transactions before starting to stabilise at around LE20. The share was the most heavily traded during the week with LE1.7 billion worth of transactions during the last two days. TE continued its impressive performance on Sunday with LE900 million of its shares changing hands. On the back of TE's IPO, EFG-Hermes is still recording new highs. EFG, one of the book runners of TE, traded LE845 million worth of shares, ranking it the second busiest stock in the week. It surged by 6.41 per to close at LE113.8. Another active stock during the week and earlier was Arab Cotton Ginning. Its turnover reached LE760 million. The significant performance of the company comes in the wake of its expansion plans. Convening earlier this week, its general assembly decided to buy 60 per cent of Modern Nile Cotton Company which owns 40 per cent of Al-Nasr Company for Ready Made Garments (KABO). Another factor that helped the textiles sector in general was the celebration of the first anniversary of the QIZ agreement. Exports of textiles to the US market reached $116 million, up from $61 million in the same period last year. Arab Ginning ended the week at LE21.56. The market's old star, Orascom Telecom, had an active week at least in terms of news making. OT lost its bid on the Turkish mobile operator and the stock did not witness any improvement, remaining at the same level. Meanwhile, OT sold its 65 per cent stake in Libertis Telecom, its GSM operation in CongoBrazzaville, in return for $66.6 million in cash. According to OT officials, the decision was taken to focus on the company's more profitable operations. As of 30 September Libertis had approximately 195,000 subscribers and its earnings constituted less than 1.3 per cent of OT's consolidated earnings. OT currently has operations in Algeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq and Bangladesh. It ended the week at LE581, a slip of only 0.48 per cent. The banking awaited the outcome of a number of ongoing takeover negotiations. Three competitors are eyeing the acquisition of the 18.7 per cent owned by the National Bank of Egypt in Commercial International Bank (CIB). The competitors are the Gulf Investment Group, Abrag Capital with the American investment fund Ribload, and a British group. Moving to the macroeconomic front, privatisation is giving the market reasons for joy. According to a report by the Centre for Global Development that was quoted by Prime Securities, the government of Egypt generated around LE47.0 billion of privatisation proceeds between 1995 and 2003 to rank second in the Middle East after Morocco in terms of privatisation receipts. Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin said the privatisation programme receipts in Egypt during the last six months reached LE9.8 billion. A further 15-30 per cent stake of AMOC will be offered to the public. This is in addition to a 20 per cent stake of MIDOR oil refinery and 12 per cent of Egypt Aluminium.
