CAIRO: Egyptian share indexes dipped on Thursday on news of a lower-than-expected bid for National Bank for Development and profit-taking by retail investors after two days of light gains in the market, traders said.
News about National Bank for Development is causing the selling pressure. Most of the market plunged due to profit taking and this negative news that triggered a lot of selling, said Mohamed Radwan of Delta Securities.
On Thursday, a consortium led by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank made the only bid for NBD, offering 11 Egyptian pounds ($1.93) per share, less than a third of its market price. By close of trade, NBD shares had plummeted 55 percent to end at 16.25 pounds.
Shares in a number of banks also fell. Commercial International Bank lost 0.2 percent to close at 56.51 pounds, Egyptian Gulf Bank closed 5.6 percent down at $2.51, Housing and Development Bank closed 5.1 percent down at 37.70 pounds.
Shares in Orascom Telecom, which had a five-for-one share split on Thursday, closed at 80.80 pounds a share, the equivalent of a 0.7 percent decline.
Egyptian Resorts, which decided on a two-for-three stock dividend and is also raising capital through a rights issue, closed 5 percent down at 28.28 pounds per share.
The benchmark Hermes index closed 0.4 percent down at 65,270.38 points and the widely watched Case 30 index closed 0.3 percent down at 7,410.57. The broader CIBC-100 index fell 2.2 percent to 311.15 points.
