CAIRO: Shares rose on Thursday, with shares in investment bank EFG-Hermes and Commercial International Bank (CIB) rising on rumors of a possible merger between them.
A CIB official denied the rumor on Wednesday.
The banking sector was on fire today, with demand for Commercial Investment Bank, EFG Hermes and National Societe Generale pushing the sector higher price-wise, said Bassim Arida of CIBC Brokerage.
It was mainly institutional investors buying … but it was the rumors of mergers as well.
Talk of a merger between investment bank EFG-Hermes and CIB, first touted on Tuesday, saw shares in EFG-Hermes rise 1.4 percent to LE 42.50 ($7.43) and CIB also rose 2.42 percent to LE 58.05.
NSGB s shares rose 4.8 percent to LE 48.50 after it said on Wednesday its merger with Misr International Bank (MIBank) would be completed by Nov. 30 and that it planned to open 19 new branches before 2007.
Housing and Development Bank s shares were phenomenal today, said one trader, with its shares rocketing 27.4 percent to LE 55.70 after it said on Thursday it would combine both classes of its shares by the end of the fiscal year 2006-7.
The benchmark Hermes index gained 1.2 percent to end at 58,417.52 points while the well-watched Case 30 index rose 1.2 percent to 6,609.88. The broader CIBC-100 index was 0.01 percent lower at 280.74 points.
There has been a lot of institutional buying in the banking sector, blue-chips and telecoms, said Hashem Ghoneim of El-Nour Securities.
