Orascom Development eyes Romania land for housing Swiss-based developer Orascom Development has earmarked 2.5 million square meters of land for an affordable housing project in Romania, its first such project outside Egypt, it said on Friday. The project, in which Orascom holds a 70 percent stake, is expected to offer a total of 33,000 units developed over three equal phases. The first should be operational within five years, the firm said late on Thursday. Orascom Development, which is also listed in Egypt, specializes in building and managing mixed-use resorts, but also owns hotels and budget housing. It has projects in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Switzerland, Morocco, the United Kingdom and Turkey. -Reuters Egypt s NBD to begin $45 mln rights issue in AprilEgypt s National Bank for Development (NBD), which is converting to a fully Islamic bank, said it will launch its LE 250 million ($45.45 million) rights issue next month. A UAE-based consortium led by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) agreed on the capital increase, to LE 2 billion, when it bought a 60.8 percent stake in NDB in 2007. NDB will use the sale of 25 million shares at LE 10 each to expand the number of its branches and finance its projects, it said in an advertisement in Al-Ahram newspaper on Thursday. The rights issue runs from April 14 to May 13 and is open to investors holding shares as of April 8. ADIB said last month it plans to raise its stake in NBD to over 51 percent from its current 49 percent when NBD becomes fully Islamic. It will be Egypt s third Islamic bank after Faisal Islamic Bank and the Egyptian Saudi Finance Bank. -Reuters Bharti shares fall, Zain assets deal weighs Bharti Airtel shares fell more than 2 percent on Friday on concerns that a debt-funded $9 billion deal to buy the African assets of Kuwaiti telecom Zain may stretch the Indian mobile operator s financials. New Delhi-based Bharti said late on Thursday due diligence on the deal to buy Zain Africa BV, a company incorporated in the Netherlands, is complete, and expected to sign definitive agreements with Zain soon, echoing what the Kuwaiti group said the previous day. The acquisition would give Bharti access to 15 countries in Africa. The (Zain Africa) deal is extremely good from a long-term point of view, but the market generally does not like such deals because they could stretch the balance sheet, said Ambareesh Baliga, vice president at Karvy Stock Broking. -Reuters Morocco s Meditel says in stake sale talks Morocco s second-biggest telecoms firm Meditel is in talks with several foreign operators to sell a stake in the company, although no deal has been agreed for now, its managing director said on Thursday. Meditel, which competes with former monopoly Maroc Telecom, has said it has the know-how to grow on its own after the loss last year of two major investors, Spain s Telefonica and Portugal Telecom. Their stakes of 32.2 percent each were sold to Moroccan private group Finance.com and state investment vehicle CDG for $1.15 billion in September. Finance.com and CDG said at the time they were not ruling out the possibility of a new shareholder if it added to Meditel s value. They also say they are open to a listing of Meditel on the Casablanca stock exchange. Of course, we are constantly solicited by foreign operators and responses are made, Meditel s Managing Director Mohamed Elmanjra told reporters during a presentation of its 2009 results in Casablanca. Nothing is closed. There are ... talks with lots of foreign operators, he said. But to say that something is done or signed is not at all the case. Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (Etisalat) has said it is still interested in Morocco after losing out in the bidding for the Spanish and Portuguese stakes last year. Elmanjra said Meditel s market share grew 2.5 percentage points last year to 37.3 percent, compared with 63.4 percent for Maroc Telecom. Meditel achieved a 62 percent jump in full-year operating cash flow to 1.2 billion dirhams ($143.2 million) as its turnover grew 2.2 percent to 5.4 billion dirhams in a flat market. In the fourth quarter, turnover was up 10 percent. -Reuters Dubai CDS on rise but Nakheel bonds extend gainsDubai debt insurance costs rose back above 400 basis points on Friday while the 2015 bond issued by the Dubai Department of Finance fell half a point, but Dubai World subsidiary Nakheel saw its bonds extend gains. Dubai on Thursday announced a $9.5 billion debt restructuring proposal repaying in full the 2010 and 2011 bonds of developer Nakheel, a subsidiary of the state-run Dubai World conglomerate. Five year credit default swaps (CDS) for Dubai were quoted at 405 basis points on Friday by CDS tracker CMA DataVision, up 3 bps versus Thursday s close. This is a jump of 45 bps from earlier on Thursday when CDS fell to their lowest since Nov 24, 2009 - a day before the emirate stunned financial markets with a debt repayment standstill. The 2014 Islamic bond issued by the Dubai department of Finance fell 0.450 points in price with the yield up 11.6 bps. Analysts say doubts are creeping in about the state of the debt-laden emirate s finances. It said no new money is forthcoming from oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi, which had bailed it out to help with a mid-December coupon payment and it is funding the restructuring out of its own pocket. The finances of the government of Dubai itself remain stretched and, in fact, appear to be put under greater near-term strain by the terms of the proposed restructuring agreement, HSBC said in a research note. However, bonds of Dubai World subsidiary Nakheel continued to rise. The dirham-denominated Islamic bond due May 2010 was quoted with a bid/offer of 94/97 after trading at a July 2008 high of 94.75 on Thursday. The Jan 2011 dollar issue rose half a point. -Reuters
