The consolidated financial statements of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) for the first quarter (Q1) of 2015 showed a 15.3% year-on-year (YoY) increase in the company's profits, which reached EGP 373.8m (approximately $49.4m). During the same quarter of the previous year, profits recorded EGP 324.34. The company's operational revenues registered EGP 647.4m. Further, the company's standalone net profits stood at EGP 221.5m. In February, the company sold its stake and all voting rights in the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (Mobinil) to Orange SA, which are equal to 28.75%. The deal meant that Orange would pay an amount of approximately €209.6m to increase its stake in Mobinil, from approximately 94% to approximately 99%. In 2012, Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris, OTMT's Executive chairman and CEO, sold a part of his shares in Mobinil to Orange. The latest deal marks his selling of his last minority stake of 5% in Mobinil. During the Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC), which took place in March, Sawiris said that his group aims to inject EGP 2.5bn in a number of labour-intensive projects in the upcoming period. Sawiris added the new projects will focus on logistics, river transportation, and agriculture, as well as traditional and renewable energy. The company will finance small and micro-projects, the business tycoon said. At the EEDC, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Lafarge Egypt and OTMT to develop a waste management municipal and agricultural waste facility. Another agreement was also signed between the company and the Ministry of Electricity to establish a 50 MW solar energy plant. Deputy CEO and chief operating officer Tamer El-Mahdy told Daily News Egypt in May that the main challenge facing OTMT's solar energy project is the coordination between the Ministries of Finance and Electricity and the Central Bank of Egypt.
