Orascom Hotels eyes acquisitions in 2008
Reuters reported that Orascom Hotels and Development plans to acquire two local hotels and aims to expand further in the Middle East and nearby regions, its chairman and CEO said on Tuesday.
We are looking at two hotels … They are operational, Sameh Sawiris said in an interview on the sidelines of an Egyptian investment forum in New York.
He also said Orascom Hotels was set to post strong profits for the fourth quarter, full-year 2007 as well as 2008, said Reuters.
As for the two hotels, Orascom, which already owns 19 in Egypt, is looking to pay about $50 million for both, Sawiris said. It just finished an acquisition of a majority stake in a 530-room hotel and marina in Egypt for about $20 million, a real steal, he said.
This is a project in development for 16 years and those who started it just gave up, added the chairman, a member of Egypt s Sawiris family which owns firms from telecommunications to construction and stakes in international firms. -Agencies
Top Egypt firms said to grow earns 35 pct in 2008
Reuters reported that aggregate corporate earnings for companies listed in Egypt s benchmark stock index are likely to grow by up to 35 percent in 2008, the chairman of Egyptian investment bank Beltone Financial said on Monday.
We are estimating earnings growth of somewhere between 30 and 35 percent for the total market in 2008, Aladdin Saba, whose company has about $5.5 billion under investment, told Reuters in an interview.
Saba, who was attending an Egyptian investment forum at the New York Stock Exchange, said he was referring to companies listed in the key CASE 30 index.
The CASE 30 is down 0.46 percent this year amid the global financial market turmoil, compared with 51 percent gain in 2007, a 10 percent rise in 2006 and 146 percent in 2005. -Agencies
Egypt hunts missing cargo ship
Egypt launches search for ship missing off Sudan
CAIRO: Egypt said on Tuesday it has launched a search to find a cargo ship that has gone missing in the Red Sea on its way to Sudan.
The 1,700-ton Badr 1 left the Egyptian port of Suez several days ago and was headed for Port Sudan with a 14-member crew made up of nine Egyptians, four Sudanese, and one Yemeni, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Rescue ships have been sent along the Sudanese coast to search for the ship, it said, adding that Egypt also planned to send an airplane.
According to the ministry, the vessel s owner Afro-Asia Shipping said the ship had complied with all safety measures required and had obtained all the necessary licenses before leaving the Egyptian port. -AFP
Egypt stock market to launch ETF, derivatives
Reuters reported that Egypt s bourse plans to launch an exchange traded fund for blue-chip equities in the coming months and stock and index futures and options next year, the head of the exchange told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
We are negotiating with Beltone [Financial] to launch an Egyptian ETF [exchange traded fund] based on our CASE 30 in the second quarter of 2008, by May or June, to be listed on the Cairo and Alexandria [stock] exchange, said Maged Shawky, chairman of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (CASE).
The CASE 30, which groups the stocks of the top Egyptian companies in a benchmark index, has risen more than five-fold since Egypt launched an economic reform drive in July 2004.
Shawky said that the exchange was putting in place a new trading platform built by Nordic bourse OMX AB in order to increase trading capacity and offer derivative financial products by the middle of 2009.
We are very open to what the issuers want to offer. We get a sense that there is interest for contracts regardless of whether it is futures or options on the index as well as for the underlying stocks, he told Reuters on the sidelines of an Egyptian investment forum at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
The launch of these products and the new trading platform could at least double the current daily trading volume of $150 million-$180 million over the next two years.
Shawky said the current market capitalization is about LE 750 billion or about $150 billion, which is equivalent to roughly 100 percent of the nation s gross domestic product.
Centamin Egypt says intersected new high grade gold system at Sukari
Thomson Financial reported that Centamin Egypt Ltd said it has intersected a further extremely high grade zone of gold mineralization during its drilling program at its Sukari project in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.
The current drill program has been very successful in targeting the down dip extension of the Hapi zone and deeper parallel high grade structures, providing significant results over the past few months of focus in the Amun Deeps area, the company said.
The company said it will drill the Amun Deeps zone further to add to the global gold resource.
Monument to Azerbaijani president in Qalioubia
The opening of a monument dedicated to the Azerbaijani ex-President Heydar Aliyev in the Egyptian city of Qalioubia near Cairo will take place today, the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Egypt, Faig Bagirov, reported to Trend News from Cairo in a telephone interview.
The sculptors of the monument are Azerbaijani. The project is being implemented within the framework of cooperation between the Azerbaijani Absheron Region Administration and the Qalioubia Administration.
A MOU was signed between Qalioubia and Absheron in summer 2007 during the visit of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Egypt. According to the agreement, Khirdalan and Kalubeya are twin cities, the ambassador said.
The Park of the Azerbaijan-Egypt Friendship was established in the center of the Khirdalan city of Azerbaijan. A monument to the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and copies of the ancient Greek sculptures were built within this park. Kalubeya Adli, the governor, took part in the official opening of the park in December 2007.
