A consortium of five Egyptian banks will sign the final loan agreement worth 13 billion Egyptian pounds ($735.7 million) with Telecom Egypt by the middle of next week. In September, Telecom Egypt reached a loan agreement with a consortium of five banks comprising the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Commercial International Bank – Egypt (CIB), Banque Misr, QNB AlAhli, and Crédit Agricole to pay for the 4G licence. The loan will include two tranches; the first is in a dollar-dominated tranche of $180 million and the second in local currency worth 9.760 billion pounds. The following table demonstrates the banks' contributions to the local currency-dominated tranche. The bank Contribution in Egyptian pound NBE 3.156 billion Banque Misr 3.156 billion CIB 1.870 billion QNB AlAhli 1.350 billion Crédit Agricole 228 million The banks' contributions to the dollar-dominated tranche are as follows: The bank Contribution in US Dollar NBE 58 million Banque Misr 58 million CIB 35 million QNB AlAhli 25 million Crédit Agricole 4 million The loan will be paid over eight years, designed to fund Telecom Egypt's capital expansions and cover infrastructure upgrade costs needed to provide the fourth-generation network services. In August last year, Telecom Egypt signed a deal to buy a 15-year 4G mobile licence, which will cost licence the company 7.08 billion Egyptian pounds, of which 5.2 billion pounds was paid in advance, half of which in dollars. The company had secured a bridge loan arranged by the NBE and CIB to pay for the first instalment of the 4G licence. Telecom Egypt reached later in September 2016 a loan agreement with the five-bank consortium, which agreed to secure 5 billion pounds at the beginning but later approved the company's request to arrange 13 billion pounds.
