By Patrick Werr
CAIRO, Jan 2 (Reuters) - An Egyptian appeals committee has rejected a request by Orascom Telecom that the regulator block France Telecom's latest bid to buy all of Mobinil shares, the regulator said on Saturday.
France Telecom subsidiary Orange Participations earlier this month offered 245 Egyptian pounds ($44.63) for each share in Mobinil, Egypt's biggest mobile firm by subscribers. The offer began on Dec 15 and will end on Jan. 14.
Orascom and France Telecom are Mobinil's main shareholders, but neither has a majority stake. The two have been locked in an ownership dispute since 2007.
'The committee has approved the earlier decision,' allowing France Telecom to go ahead with its offer, Khaled Serry Seyam, deputy chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority, said.
Orascom had argued that France Telecom should have offered 273 pounds, equivalent to a price set by an Egyptian court in April for Mobinil shares held by Orascom through a holding company, and which the court ordered France Telecom to buy.
Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper on Tuesday quoted an unnamed Orascom official as saying the company would take the battle to the courts if the appeals committee refused to block France Telecom's offer.
Orascom spokeswoman Manal Abdel-Hamid said her company would issue a statement on the decision later this evening or tomorrow.
If market heavyweight Orascom were to sell its shares, it could net more than $1.6 billion.
The company went to its shareholders this month to seek an extra $800 million in capital to cover a cash shortfall pending the resolution of a dispute with the Algerian authorities over taxes at its Algerian unit Djezzy.
A sale of its Mobinil shares, however, would remove Orascom from its home Egyptian market.
'For Mobinil, the decision is positive for its share price, because now there is a greater likelihood the France Telecom offer will go through,' said Amr Elalfy, a telecoms analyst with CI Capital.
'For OT, it is negative, because it's probably the last action they can take, unless they reach an accommodation in talks they been having with France Telecom,' he added.
Orascom runs mobile phone operations from North Africa to North Korea, and earlier this month it won aproval in Canada to go ahead with a startup wireless operation called Globalive, in which it owns an indirect stake.
(Writing by Patrick Werr; Editing by Ron Askew) ($1=5.489 Egyptian Pound) Keywords: ORASCOMTELECOM EGYPT/ (patrick.werr@thomsonreuters.com; +20 2 2578 3290/1) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
CAIRO, Jan 2 (Reuters) - An Egyptian appeals committee has rejected a request by Orascom Telecom that the regulator block France Telecom's latest bid to buy all of Mobinil shares, the regulator said on Saturday.
France Telecom subsidiary Orange Participations earlier this month offered 245 Egyptian pounds ($44.63) for each share in Mobinil, Egypt's biggest mobile firm by subscribers. The offer began on Dec 15 and will end on Jan. 14.
Orascom and France Telecom are Mobinil's main shareholders, but neither has a majority stake. The two have been locked in an ownership dispute since 2007.
'The committee has approved the earlier decision,' allowing France Telecom to go ahead with its offer, Khaled Serry Seyam, deputy chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority, said.
Orascom had argued that France Telecom should have offered 273 pounds, equivalent to a price set by an Egyptian court in April for Mobinil shares held by Orascom through a holding company, and which the court ordered France Telecom to buy.
Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper on Tuesday quoted an unnamed Orascom official as saying the company would take the battle to the courts if the appeals committee refused to block France Telecom's offer.
Orascom spokeswoman Manal Abdel-Hamid said her company would issue a statement on the decision later this evening or tomorrow.
If market heavyweight Orascom were to sell its shares, it could net more than $1.6 billion.
The company went to its shareholders this month to seek an extra $800 million in capital to cover a cash shortfall pending the resolution of a dispute with the Algerian authorities over taxes at its Algerian unit Djezzy.
A sale of its Mobinil shares, however, would remove Orascom from its home Egyptian market.
'For Mobinil, the decision is positive for its share price, because now there is a greater likelihood the France Telecom offer will go through,' said Amr Elalfy, a telecoms analyst with CI Capital.
'For OT, it is negative, because it's probably the last action they can take, unless they reach an accommodation in talks they been having with France Telecom,' he added.
Orascom runs mobile phone operations from North Africa to North Korea, and earlier this month it won aproval in Canada to go ahead with a startup wireless operation called Globalive, in which it owns an indirect stake.
(Writing by Patrick Werr; Editing by Ron Askew) ($1=5.489 Egyptian Pound) Keywords: ORASCOMTELECOM EGYPT/ (patrick.werr@thomsonreuters.com; +20 2 2578 3290/1) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.