Beltone Financial Holding registered net profits worth EGP 10.7m in the first half (H1) of 2015, the financial group revealed on Wednesday. The H1 results, however, show a decline when compared to those of the same period in the previous year. In 2014, the company's net profits were EGP 11m, marking a 2.8% decline in 2015. On Tuesday, Beltone Market Maker, a subsidiary of Beltone Financial Holding, became a member of the NASDAQ Dubai, and will provide market making services on the region's international exchange. Beltone Market Maker will focus on offering bid and offer prices in NASDAQ Dubai-listed selected securities under its market making services. Through this, it aims to support liquidity, attractive pricing and active trading, Beltone said in a Tuesday statement. Cairo-based Beltone Financial Holding is a regional financial services group operating in the fields of asset management, investment banking, private equity, securities brokerage, custody, and research. In June 2014, the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) granted Beltone the Market Maker licence, the country's first licence for exchange traded funds. Also in 2014, Beltone Financial and its alliance with businessman Naguib Sawiris attempted to purchase 20% of Arab world's leading investment bank, EFG-Hermes. However, the acquisition was not completed, as Hermes shareholders offered 54.4m shares for sale to the Sawiris-Beltone alliance at EGP 16 per share. This number represented only 48% of the total number of shares the alliance had hoped to purchase.
