CAIRO: Egypt s Naeem Holding has joined Qatar Telecom and Singapore s ST Telemedia in a consortium to bid for Egypt s third mobile license, Naeem and Qtel said in a statement published on Thursday. Qtel has a majority stake in the consortium, said the statement, and published in full in the state newspaper Al Ahram. It did not give a breakdown for the others stakes. Naeem Holding describes itself as an investment bank with brokerage, portfolio and fund management, private equity and corporate finance operations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was set up in 2005. Egypt s state-owned Banque Misr is considering cooperation with Turkish operator Turkcell in a separate bid for the third license, a Banque Misr official said on Thursday. The deadline for applications for the third license is May 4, and the offer has attracted widespread interest. By April 3, 21 companies had bought the prospectus for the license, the Egyptian government said. Telecom Italia, local fixed-line operator Telecom Egypt, Kuwait s Mobile Telecommunications Co., Emirates Telecommunications Corp. and Norway s Telenor have all said they will bid or are considering bids, in many cases in consortiums. Vodafone Egypt and MobiNil operate Egypt s two existing mobile networks and had close to 13 million subscribers between them at the end of December. Egypt has more than 73 million people. Reuters
