Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris dominated the Egyptian Exchange in 2015, with the key acquisition in the financial services sector of Beltone Financial through an alliance with Orascom in a deal reported to have cost EGP 650m. This was not Sawiris's only move in 2015. By December, Orascom presented an acquisition offer to CIB's CI Capital. The deal is expected to be worth between EGP 900-950m. The new year of 2016 begins with the market awaiting Sawiris's plan to create a new investment bank that may be able to compete with EFG Hermes, the biggest investment bank in the Middle East. Chairman of Al-Tawfeek for Financial Investments Khaled Abou Heif said Sawiris believes that the financial services sector is likely to grow, which explains why he would invest about EGP 1.5bn in two acquisition deals. Abou Heif said that, before their merger, Beltone and CI Capital were strong competitors in the fields of securities brokerage, asset management, and IPOs. "Looking at the asset management sector, we find that the alliance manages financial funds and portfolios of some EGP 42bn ($5.43bn), where Beltone manages EGP 32bn and CI Capital manages EGP 10bn," Abou Heif said. In terms of the brokerage sector, the alliance is relatively better than Hermes. The alliance's market share, including transactions in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, from the beginning of 2015until the end of November recorded 24.9% versus 15.4% for Hermes, he said. Source: Reuters
