Egypt has scrapped plans to sell its 15 percent stake in Bank of Alexandria, a unit of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo, the finance minister said.
Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros-Ghali was quoted in the state-run Al-Ahram as saying that the government no longer plans to sell its stake in a public offering.
When the Italian San Paolo Group acquired 80 percent of BOA for $1.6 billion in 2006, Egypt’s investment ministry said it would sell 15 percent of the bank in an IPO and allocate 5 percent to the bank’s staff members in the final quarter of 2007. However, the sale of the stake had been postponed, awaiting more favorable market conditions.
Intesa Sanpaolo plans to expand the number of branches of its Egyptian unit, Bank of Alexandria, Bloomberg reported.
