Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Regulator Thinks France Telecom's Offer For Mobinil Is Too Low






France Telecom's appeal in its bid to buy the remaining shares in Egypt's Egyptian Co. for Mobile Services has been rejected by the country's financial regulator. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority rejected the offers by France Telecom to acquire the remaining shares as too low, saying they were less than the price set by an arbitration ruling for the majority of the company.
"Today it was a decision of a judicial committee, which has decided to reject the claim and approve the decision of the authority," said Khaled Serry Seyam, the deputy chairman of the Capital Markets Authority.
"We didn't think that the regulator would go back on their decision," Marise Ananian, an analyst at Cairo-based investment bank EFG-Hermes Holding told Bloomberg News. "Giving one price to Orascom Telecom in the Mobinil Telecom consortium and offering another to minority shareholders of the Egyptian Co. for Mobile Services was unacceptable to the regulator and France Telecom didn't provide any information to justify it."
France Telecom and Orascom Telecom Holding have been in dispute ever since France Telecom won an arbitration ruling this year requiring Orascom to sell its stake in Mobinil, a holding company that owns a stake in the mobile network operator, also known as MobiNil.

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