Telecom Egypt offers over 162 million shares up for sale

The Egyptian Finance Ministry announced the sale of the first batch of Telecom Egypt shares in the secondary market of the country’s stock exchange on May 14.

According to the ministry, 9.5 per cent of the company’s shares were sold on Thursday, totalling 162,171,802 shares under the accelerated book building at a price of EGP23.11 pounds and at a total value of EGP3.747bn, state news agency WAM reported.

Demands on the shares of the first group reached 504,477,277 shares, more than the offered stocks by 3.11 times.

The second batch represents 5 per cent of the shares totaling 8,535,358 shares, the Egyptian Finance Ministry said.

Telecom Egypt second offering is aimed at employees

The second offering, dedicated to staffers of Telecom Egypt, started on Sunday and will go on until May 25.

Employees are allowed to register their buying orders under the overnight policy rate system. In case staffers did not buy the offered shares, the shareholder could offer them to investors.

By the two batches, the total amount of offered shares is 170,707,160 shares, representing 10 per cent of Telecom Egypt stocks and 12.5 per cent of shares of the Finance Ministry, WAM reported.

Before the deal, the Egyptian government held 80 per cent of the telecommunications company’s equity.

In other news, in March, Telecom Egypt announced that Engineer Mohamed Nasr Eldin Mohamed Ali was appointed as managing director and CEO of the company to succeed Engineer Adel Hamed Ibrahim Gadallah.

Engineer Gadallajh remains on Telecom Egypt’s board of directors as a non-executive member.

Read: World Bank approves five-year plan to support Egypt development