Egypt's shares recovered from the worst losing streak in 2018 on Sunday, as foreign and Arab investors hunted for cheap valuation stocks amid a weak liquidity. The Egyptian benchmark index ended Sunday's session 1.3% up, to close at 14,261.25 points. The CIB, the index's heaviest constituent ended 0.3% up. EGX 30 top performing constituents were Orascom Investment Holding 9.9% up, Ibnsina Pharma 7.4% up, and EFG Hermes 6.4% up. Yesterday's worst performing stocks were AMOC 0.7%, Egypt Aluminium 0.4% down, and Orascom Construction flat. The market turnover was EGP 501m, and local investors were the sole net sellers. The small-and medium-caps EGX 70 index rose 0.74% to 687.92 points, while the EGX 100 index increased by 0.88% to 1,755 points. The bourse's trading volume reached 141.19m shares, while the market's liquidity hit EGP 502.26m. Market capitalisation rose EGP 8.4bn to EGP 788.5bn. In other market news, Telecom Egypt's (ETEL) board of directors approved the acquisition of a 50% of its subsidiary Egyptian International Submarine Cable Company (EISCC) at a value of $15m. On 17 September 2018, ETEL announced that EISCC had completed the acquisition of MENA Cable from Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) at a total enterprise value of $90m. Earlier in August, ETEL had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bharti Airtel, under which ETEL will bundle assets of its international submarine network with MENA Cable assets. The deal, which is expected to be concluded soon, will enable ETEL to recover its entire investment in MENA Cable. Meanwhile, ETEL just announced this morning the launch of its ‘one bill' offering under the name indigo PLUS, marking its transformation to a fully-integrated total telecom operator. This comes on the first anniversary of the launch of the ‘We' brand and its mobile service. Meanwhile, OIH Executive Chairperson Naguib Sawiris, tweeted Thursday night that OIH's Koryolink of North Korea has obtained a UN exemption. However, no further elaboration was conveyed about any regain of control over the North Korean associate. In IPO news, Cairo Investment and Real Estate Development's (CIRA) institutional offering has been 10.36x oversubscribed, with the stock priced at EGP 6 per share.
