UPDATE: France Telecom Files New Buyout Offer For ECMS
19 Mai 2009 - 4:57PM
Dow Jones News
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.)