CAIRO: Beltone Financial said in a report published on Tuesday that the net losses by Egypt's Orascom Telecom (OT) for the final quarter of 2010 were a “disappointment.” The report comes on the heels of a number of OT deals, including the buyout by Russia's Vimpelcom that is expected to be finalized next month. “We are disappointed by the continuous instability in OT's bottom line performance, despite the modest q-o-q improvement in revenues of core GSM operations, namely Algeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in 4Q2010,” a statement from Beltone read. Analysts in Cairo do not seem too concerned with the report, saying that with OT's restructuring last year and their moves on the market, losses were to be expected. “What needs to happen now is for the company to rebound nicely and show investors and shareholders that they will be back in business,” said telecom analyst Hisham Hassan. OT released its financial results on Monday for the year through the end of December, reporting that revenues reached $3.83 billion, a two percent rise from the year before. During the last quarter, OT said it had $980 million in revenue, a small one percent increase. Overall net income however rose to $734 million, a 143 percent rise from 2009. However, the net loss for the fourth quarter was around $170 million. “The reported net loss in 4Q2010 was a disappointment versus our net profit estimate of $56 million in 4Q2010, since Tunisiana was excluded from FY2010 results and given that OT's bottom line was adversely affected by several unforeseen impairment losses, worth $128 million in total,” the Beltone report continued. BM
