CAIRO: Main Egyptian stock indexes rose on Tuesday, with shares in Commercial International Bank (CIB) climbing on continued market speculation it would buy Arab-African International Bank, traders said. Shares in CIB, one of Egypt s top private banks, rose 3 percent to close at LE 72.99 ($12.9) a share. Rumors about the merger of Arab African and CIB were still dominating the scene today, said Mohamed Radwan of Delta Securities. CIB has declined to comment on the rumor. Traders said if the acquisition takes place, the new entity would have a significant share of Egypt s banking sector. It s very positive for CIB, said Yasser Hassanein of Dynamic Securities. The two combined would have a huge market share of the banking sector in Egypt. Then maybe they would also bid for Banque du Caire, which would make it an even bigger entity, he added. The Egyptian government has said it would sell Banque du Caire as part of its privatization scheme. The bank is expected to fetch more than $1.6 billion, the amount paid for Bank of Alexandria which was privatized in October. Orascom Telecom stocks also rose 0.9 percent to LE 78 after the regional mobile operator extended a formal offer last week to buy technology and communications firm Raya for LE 684 million. Raya shares rose 1.2 percent to LE 13.20, LE 1.20 pounds higher than the OT offer for its stocks. Raya officials have said they would not consider the bid. Bucking the trend was investment bank EFG Hermes, which fell 3.21 percent on profit-taking to close at LE 48.52 a share. Overall, the well watched Case 30 index rose 0.6 percent to close at 8,469.27 points, while the benchmark Hermes index rose 0.5 percent to 74,283.22 points. The broader CIBC index up closed up 0.7 percent at 349.14 points.
