Ayman Essam, the External Affairs and Legal Director of Vodafone Egypt, said that the Ministry of Communications has not notified him of the final decision regarding the situation of Telecom Egypt’s (TE) share in Vodafone Egypt.
Essam added that the decision is up to the Ministry of Communications and global Vodafone and TE. “I am certain that the minister of communications has more than one proposal and a vision to solve the conflict,” he said.
Regarding the situation of the representatives of TE in Vodafone’s board of directors meetings, Essam said that the most recent board meeting was in Ramadan and was attended by representatives of TE.
“The next board meeting will be held the end of this month; they will most certainly attend the meeting as we have not received a notification saying otherwise,” Essam added.
TE has started its activity as a fourth mobile operator and the first integrated operator in the Egyptian market, becoming a competitor of Vodafone. TE owns 45% of the shares of Vodafone Egypt.
TE has obtained the 4G licenses for EGP 2.2bn, in addition to EGP 5.5bn for the value of the 15 mHz frequencies. Thus, the price of frequencies is $626.4m, which means that the price of a single mega hertz is $41.7m.
Orange and Etisalat Misr obtained 10 mHz each, and Vodafone obtained only 5 mhz. Orange obtained the 4G frequencies for $484m, and only 5 mHz were allocated for Vodafone for $335m. As for Etisalat, it obtained 10 mHz for $535.5m.
