The market is rallying upwards, breaking new records every passing week. On Sunday, the CASE30 index touched the 11,900 mark for the first time since its inception. Increased interest in some of the market's large caps have been pushing up transactions to reach LE13.6 billion in the week ending on 17 April. The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange held a workshop for senior officials from 70 small-sized companies in the IT sector, to introduce them to the techniques trading in the Nilex, the small- and medium- sized enterprises stock exchange. On the macro level, Minister of Economic Development Osman Mohamed Osman gave a rosy picture of economic performance during 2008/2009. Osman said that a real GDP growth of around 7.1 per cent will be achieved through the year commencing in July 2008. The budget deficit will hover around 9.6 per cent of GDP, and total investments of LE225 billion will be injected into the economy, the minister revealed. EGYPTIAN COMPANY FOR MOBILE SERVICES (MOBINIL) and its main rival Vodafone Egypt (VFE) filed complaints to the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) against Etisalat Misr because of its most recent promotional offer. MobiNil's decision last week to lower on-net calls (calls between subscribers of its network) to LE0.2 encouraged both VFE and Etisalat Misr to follow suit. While VFE introduced a new offer to prepaid subscribers that gives them 50 per cent more free airtime each time they recharge their line, Etisalat Misr was more generous with its subscribers. The company, which is the newest mobile network operator in Egypt, slashed its on-net tariffs to LE0.2 per minute for the first minute on all its products, in addition to giving 119 free minutes for on-net calls during the rest of the day. NTRA approved Etisalat Misr's offer since it will only last for a specific period. EFG-Hermes said that the move implies a price reduction of 31-39 per cent, a move which EFG considered aggressive and aims at increasing Etisalat's market share in Egypt. This is especially true after the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) services on 7 April. On another front, MobiNil which refused to pay an instalment of its 3G licence payments to the Egyptian government on time because the NTRA did not provide it with the needed frequency band on time, refused to pay interest rates as a penalty on the delayed payments. VFE said it too will demand the rescheduling of instalments for its 3G licence if the NTRA accepts a 75-day delay by MobiNil in paying. VFE has already paid two of its four instalments since it received the 3G licence in January 2007. ORASCOM TELECOM HOLDING (OTH) is buying 106 million of its outstanding shares from the market, and revealed plans that it will hold them for three months. OTH is offering LE83 per share compared to one share's closing price of LE74.4 on 17 April. The shares represent 10.3 per cent of the company's overall outstanding stock. According to a company release sent to the local bourse, OTH said that after the three months it will consider whether to sell the shares or not, depending on the stock performance on the market. In case the company holds the shares for a period of over six months, it will invite its shareholders to an extraordinary general assembly meeting to discuss whether to sell the shares on the market, redeem them, redistribute them as stock dividend for shareholders, or use them in an Employee Stock Option Plan. On another front, OTH signed a $2.5 billion loan with a consortium of banks including Banque Misr, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Calyon, ING, HSBC, JP Morgan, Masheraq Bank, National Bank of Egypt, Standard Chartered Bank, and West LB. The loan bears an interest rate that ranges from 150 to 250 basis points over LIBOR rate. The amount will be used for general corporate purposes and to refinance a $2.56 billion loan signed in 2006 at 275 basis points over LIBOR. ORASCOM CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRIES (OCI)'s 51 per cent-owned Algerian subsidiary Sorfert signed a loan of 1.1 billion euros with a consortium of Algerian banks. It will be paid over 15 years with a grace period of three years, and will be used to finance the establishment of a new fertiliser complex in Algeria. Sorfert, which is 49 per cent-owned by Sonatrach Company, which in turn is owned by the Algerian government, is set to become one of the largest fertiliser exporters on the Mediterranean. It is scheduled to commission its first production plant in the complex in the second half of 2010. Meanwhile, OCI said the payment of the third and last instalment of a special dividend it is distributing among shareholders, and is linked to the sale of its cement business to Lafarge late last year, is postponed to a later date. According to an OCI disclosure, the instalment -- $0.9156 on each of OCI's shares -- will reach shareholders immediately after the completion of OCI's capital increase linked to its $1.59 billion purchase of the fertiliser interests of UAE-based Abraaj. OCI has already paid out LE300 ($55.25) per share over two instalments. PALM HILLS DEVELOPMENTS, the Egyptian property company, is considering offering its shares on both the local market and the London Stock Exchange in the form of Global Depository Receipts (GDR). The company's land bank comprises more than 38.9 million square metres. The planned offering includes a private placement of 63.4 million shares in the form of local shares and GDRs. The price will be announced by the end of April. Another tranche will be issued as an IPO of 12.9 million shares to be offered at a five per cent discount to the private placement price. The price range per share is LE19.25-25, which implies an offer size of LE1.6-2.1 billion. Following the offering, the company's free float would stand at around 16.4 per cent of its overall equity. The proceeds will be used to fund existing and future development projects, as well as expand the company's land bank, both in Egypt and abroad. Compiled by Sherine Abdel-Razek
