CAIRO, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Minority shareholders had been poised to sell out to France Telecom before a court ruling this week halted the French firm’s bid to take control of Mobinil, Egypt’s largest telecom provider, traders said on Thursday.

France Telecom and Orascom Telecom <ORTE.CA> are fighting over ownership of the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (ECMS), known by its brand name Mobinil. The two firms jointly own a holding company that controls Mobinil. [ID:nLDE60C0Q8]

In total, the French firm owns 36.4 percent of the firm, while Orascom has 34.6 percent, including a 20 percent direct stake. Small shareholders own the remaining 29 percent.

Investors had committed to sell between 5 and 7 million shares, equivalent to 5-7 percent of ECMS, by Thursday, the last day of France Telecom’s tender offer period, two traders said, citing stock exchange data.

CAIRO, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Egypt’s Orascom Telecom <ORTE.CA> said it rejected regulator support for a France Telecom (FT) <FTE.PA> bid for shared asset Mobinil, which would net Orascom more than $1.6 billion but see it exit its home turf.

Orascom’s London-listed stock <ORTEq.L> jumped on Friday after Egypt’s regulator approved a fresh FT bid for Mobinil, Egypt’s largest mobile firm by subscribers. Mobinil and Orascom stock does not trade in Egypt on a Friday.

The regulator said late on Thursday it had approved an FT unit’s offer to pay 245 Egyptian pounds ($44.69) for each freely traded share in Mobinil. [ID:nGEE5B92JZ]

“The company received this statement with a great deal of surprise and confusion because it contradicts the regulator’s three previous refusals,” Orascom said in a statement.

CAIRO, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Egypt’s regulator has approved an offer from a unit of France Telecom <FTE.PA> to buy Mobinil <EMOB.CA>, which has been at the centre of a dispute between the French firm and its other main shareholder Orascom Telecom.

Under the offer, Orange Participations will pay 245 Egyptian pounds ($44.71) for each freely traded share in Mobinil, Egypt’s largest mobile firm by subscribers.

France Telecom has made three offers to buy the minority stake in Mobinil but they were rejected by the regulator.

Those offers followed an arbitration court ruling in April that said Orascom <ORTE.CA> <ORTEq.L> must sell its stake in their joint holding company to the French firm for roughly 273 Egyptian pounds.

CAIRO, Nov 18 (Reuters) – A dip in consumer spending hit profit at Egypt’s Raya Communications and Technology <RAYA.CA> in the third quarter, but the company’s chairman said he saw potential for strong fourth-quarter growth.

Raya, which sells handsets to consumers, runs call centres and provides outsourced IT services, made a net profit of 13 million Egyptian pounds ($2.4 million) in the third quarter, an 18 percent rise on the same period last year.

It has sought to diversify operations but still receives more than three-quarters of its revenue from its consumer trade line.

Revenue reached 467.5 million pounds versus 584.9 million, the company said in its earnings statement on Wednesday. Its year-to-date figures showed a sharp decline on 2008.

CAIRO, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Egypt-based mobile operator Orascom Telecom still aims to launch a Canadian operation this year after a knock-back from regulators, and has mergers on its mind, too, Chairman Naguib Sawiris said on Tuesday.

Globalive, a start-up wireless carrier in which Orascom says it has an indirect stake, hopes to launch a wireless service in Canada and challenge the country’s established Big Three carriers for mobile phone subscribers.

The Canadian telecommunications regulator ruled last month, however, that Globalive was effectively under the control of its Egyptian-based financial backer and therefore did not comply with Canada’s foreign ownership rules.

“We are set to launch before Christmas,” Sawiris told a news conference in Cairo, referring to the Canadian operation. He said he was confident regulatory approval would be sorted out by then.

CAIRO, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Little has changed in Egypt to move the poor from unsafe places and prevent a repetition of a rockslide in a Cairo shantytown that killed more than 100 people last year, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday. The London-based rights group also criticised the government for resettling families far from places of work and without consultation, often in the presence of security services. "Thousands of Egypt’s poor are trapped by poverty and neglect that could ultimately end in their deaths," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa director. "The government must urgently address the risks faced by those living in areas designated as `unsafe’ and find solutions by consulting with those directly affected." "Egypt’s poor should not have to live any longer with the threat of being buried alive," he added. The rockslide in September 2008 killed more than 100 people when huge boulders crushed their ramshackle dwellings in Duwaiqa on Cairo’s eastern outskirts. Residents at the time estimated up to 600 bodies were not recovered. "The tragedy in Al-Duwayqa (Duwaiqa) was a disaster waiting to happen. And that was well known," Smart said, citing government studies after a nearby rockfall in 1993. While the government launched an investigation immediately after last year’s rockslide, no findings have yet been announced, Amnesty said. Amnesty said authorities later identified other dangerous areas and demolished more than 1,000 threatened homes, rehousing more than 1,750 families within a month. But the rights group said residents are liable to eviction, and the allocation of new housing discriminated against women who were divorced or living apart from their husbands. "Slum dwellers describe a life characterised by deprivation, neglect, insecurity and the constant threat of forcible eviction," Smart said. "The state must guarantee their right to adequate housing and put an end to forced evictions." Some of the poorest districts of Egypt’s capital have a population density of 100,000 people per square mile (41,000 per square km), and people live in informal neighbourhoods on state-owned land with minimal services. Amnesty estimates that more than 1 billion people throughout the world live in slums, and the number is growing. (Editing by Michael Roddy)

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian financial services firm Pioneers Holding <PIOH.CA> will take over investment bank Beltone Financial in an all-share deal.

Pioneers shares were up 7 percent at 7.15 Egyptian pounds ($1.31) by 1149 GMT, valuing the company at 3.575 billion Egyptian pounds ($654 million). The stock had jumped by a similar margin last Wednesday when talks between the firms first came to light.

Pioneers, with a leading position in Egypt’s retail market, said it would issue 100 million new shares to give Beltone shareholders a 17 percent stake in the merged firm.

The management of the two firms will remain separate and unchanged but both will report to a holding company under the plan, Beltone said. The board of the new holding company has yet to be announced.

CAIRO, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Egypt’s Mobinil <EMOB.CA> said its net profit fell 8.1 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, when its market saw “very aggressive” price competition.

The country’s largest mobile operator by subscribers reported a profit of 497 million Egyptian pounds ($90.8 million) in the third quarter, the low end of expectations from six analysts.

Mobinil added 1.771 million new customers in the quarter for a total of 24.625 million by end-September, the firm said on Monday.

The company added however that its blended average revenue per user (ARPU) dipped 19 percent to 38 pounds, indicating that aggressive promotions during the period had cut into revenue, which came in at 2.793 billion pounds. It was 2.664 billion pounds a year ago.

CAIRO, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Egypt’s Mobinil <EMOB.CA> said its net profit fell 8.1 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, when its market saw “very agressive” price competition.

The country’s largest mobile operator by subscribers reported a profit of 497 million Egyptian pounds ($90.8 million) in the third quarter, the low end of expectations from six analysts.

Mobinil added 1.771 million new customers in the quarter for a total of 24.625 million by end-September, the firm said on Monday.

The company added however that its blended average revenue per user (ARPU) dipped 19 percent to 38 pounds, indicating that aggressive promotions during the period had cut into revenue, which came in at 2.793 billion pounds. It was 2.664 billion pounds a year ago.

CAIRO, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Egypt’s central bank is limiting Mobinil’s <EMOB.CA> ability to borrow by linking its credit to that of one of its main shareholders, the group’s chairman said on Tuesday.

“When we go to banks to borrow, they say we have our credit limit under the Orascom group,” Alex Shalaby told reporters on the sidelines of a telecoms conference. “We really are not Orascom and are not controlled by Orascom.”

Under Egyptian banking laws, banks are allowed to lend only a certain portion of their total loans to any one client.

Mobinil is the focus of an ownership dispute between its two largest shareholders, Cairo-based Orascom Telecom <ORTE.CA> and France Telecom <FTE.PA>, that was brought to arbitration in 2007. Each own a roughly 35 percent stake. [ID:nLO369207]