France Telecom SA (FTE) has made its long-awaited tender offer to buy the remaining shares it doesn't already control in telcommunciations operator Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (EMOB.CI).

Egypt's stock market regulator, the Capital Markets Authority, said Tuesday Orange Participations, which is a unit of France Telecom, has filed its tender offer for ECMS, of which it already indirectly owns 51% through its Egyptian Mobinil unit.

The agency said in a statement on the Egyptian Exchange Web site that it's studying the offer.

The CMA in April rejected the French telecommunications giant's first attempt to buy out the remaining ECMS shareholders. "It seems that our offer wasn't high enough in the eyes of the regulator," a France Telecom spokesman had said last month. France Telecom officials weren't available to comment Tuesday.

Submission of the new offer by Orange, which is France Telecom's global mobile telephone arm, takes a month-long dispute with Egyptian telecommunications group Orascom Telecom Holding SAE closer to final resolution.

After an uneasy partnership with the French company, Orascom was ordered by Egypt's international arbitration court in March to hand its 28.75% stake in joint venture Mobinil to partner France Telecom for EUR530 million.

But the companies drew differing conclusions from the court decision and disputed whether the French were obligated to buy out the remaining shares of ECMS, of which Orascom owns 20% of ECMS, and at what price. The remaining 29% of ECMS is freely floating on the stock exchange.

Company Web sites: www.orange.com and www.mobinil.com

-By A.H. Mooradian, Dow Jones Newswires, +33 1 4017 1740; art.mooradian@dowjones.com.

(Brinda Darasha in Dubai and Ruth Bender in Paris contributed to this article.)