After two years of battling with MobiNil to establish a strong subscriber base, Click GSM is set to take its fight onto the stock exchange floor, according to a report by Al Ahram English Weekly in its last issue.
The company, now renamed Vodafone-Egypt Telecommunications, but marketed as Click-Vodafone, is scheduled to float a portion of its 120,000 shares some time during the second half of this year, said that report.
Mohamed El-Hamamsi, executive president of the company, was quoted as saying that both the date of the flotation and the share price will be made public following the announcement of the company's second year results in March. And according to Lamia' Kamel, public relations specialist at Click-Vodafone, the company is already deciding on investment banks to advise on the timing of the IPO. Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Credit Suisse First Boston are among the candidates vying to arrange the offering.
Although the number of shares to be offered has not been specified by the company, analysts expect 10 per cent to be floated in the form of GDRs and five percent offered for public subscription on the Egyptian stock exchange.
The company, currently capitalized at LE1.2 billion ($312.5m) is 60 percent owned by Vodafone International. Other major holders of shares include Alkan Establishment and EFG-Hermes, each with a 10 percent stake, and Banque du Caire, with 15 percent.
According to GSM, which was founded in November 1998 as an international consortium, there are 1,000,000 subscribers in Egypt. It claims that they “have surpassed all growth expectations within a record time. We have covered 96 percent of the population via our sites in 200 cities and 50 roads.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
