CAIRO: Transactions on the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges (Case) were boosted this week, thanks to the hefty participation of Arab and foreign buyers and sellers. Case30 index gained 0.2 percent to close at 8,129.48 points, while the benchmark Hermes index closed 0.1 percent higher at 71,894.42 points. Support for the indexes came from Alexandria Real Estate Investment, rising 7.2 percent to LE 441 per share. Talaat Mustafa Group had announced last week it would make an offer to acquire Alexandria Real Estate, its partly-owned subsidiary, for LE 394 per share. An extraordinary general assembly (EGA) will be held next Monday to discuss the viability of this offer. Heliopolis Housing also gained on Thursday rising 1.4 percent to LE 560 after a fall of more than six percent the previous session. Also in the real estate domain, Egyptian Housing Development and Reconstruction declared that the Capital Market Authority (CMA) granted the company a preliminary approval to open the subscription in the unsubscribed portion of the capital increase amounting to LE 1,460,484. Orascom Construction Industries, usually of interest to foreigners, rose 0.5 percent to LE 398.11. Shares in EFG Hermes lost 0.3 percent to LE 44.68 while Orascom Telecom was 0.2 percent lower at LE 74.50 and shares in Commercial International Bank were down 0.2 percent to LE 67.51. In the banking sector, responding to Case inquires concerning what was published on a website regarding Ahli United Bank's EGM approval on raising its stake in Ahli United Bank-Egypt to 100 percent, Ahli United Bank-Egypt sent a release denying the existence of any undisclosed information concerning this issue. The bank will inform Case once it receives any new decisions, added the release. Raya Holding for Technology and Communications have continued to progress in their sales deal and have announced their appointment of Prime Capital Co. as an independent financial consultant to present a valuation for the bid of Orascom Telecom Holding (OT) to buy 100 percent of Raya Holding's shares. Last week OT offered to buy floating shares of Raya Holding's firm at LE 12 a share in a deal worth LE 684 million.
