CAIRO: Beltone Financial Holding will see changes in management after its CEO and chairman announced negotiations to sell his stake. Aladdin Saba is in "initial negotiations for the sale of his stake in BFH to an investor, but those negotiations have not yet been finalized," Osama Rashad, head of investor relations at BFH, told Daily News Egypt in an email Tuesday morning in response to questions about the possible changes. "There will be changes made very soon, however, it will be more official when we disclose the information to the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX)," said Rashad. EGX said later on Tuesday that "the CEO of El Arabia for Investment & Development is about to acquire Beltone CEO's stake in the company.” The stock exchange had decided early on Tuesday to suspend trading on Beltone effective immediately, "until the company responds to EGX concerning what was published on a website," EGX said on their official site without specifying if the mentioned report was about the possible changes. In its response to EGX during trading hours, BFH stressed that the talks were not final. While BFH hadn't named the potential buyer, El Arabia for Investment & Development said the company is conducting preliminary talks with several investors in Beltone, while also stressing that such talks were "not final." "The issue is not yet official; if this transaction does go through, it is not clear if the buyer will be the Managing Director or just a stakeholder," said Rashad. Shortly after their response, EGX resumed Beltone's trading. The firm is currently listed on the stock exchange as Beltone Financial Holding, BTFH.CA. The stocks of the company are expected to be affected, as the case with any similar change in management, Tarik Salama, a financial consultant, told DNE. According to Salama, this is the second time a high-profile CEO sells his share in Beltone, the first being Aly El Tahry. "I think as a result, their stocks and revenue will go down for a while," said Salama. "There is a management that conducts business and it is changing. This is a response you get from the market when you have a high-profile CEO selling his share." He explained that before Egypt's uprising; investment banks and major businesses were highly constrained and controlled by ousted president Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal. In light of the recent transformation in Egypt's political and economic arena, business is set to change. "When a system falls, the people that were there and used their relationships with the ruling family to get ahead in business, will slowly start to disappear. It happened to Ahmed Ezz," said Salama referring to the steel tycoon and owner of Ezz Steels. "I expect that this will happen, although talking about the economy now is very difficult and it is hard to make any forecasts," he added. BFH Financial is one of the Middle East and North Africa's most prominent investment banks. BFH business divisions include Beltone Securities Brokerage, Beltone Financial Securities Emirates, Research, Asset Management, MENA Capital in London, Beltone Private Equity and BMG Financial Group in Saudi Arabia.
