Egypt’s leading investment bank EFG-Hermes closed a deal with VimpelCom-Wind Telecom on Thursday for a whopping $7 billion, the investment bank said in a statement published late Thursday.
According to their statement, it is the “largest M&A transaction to date,” which makes it an important telecom agreement for Egypt’s firm.
”This landmark transaction is one of the largest in the global M&A market in 2011 and is a historic milestone in the regional deal making landscape,” the statement from EFG-Hermes read.
With the completion of the deal, it means that it will establish the world’s 6th largest mobile telecom provider in terms of subscriptions. VimpelCom now operates in 20 countries with some 181 million subscribers.
Reuters news agency reported that key Russian shareholder Altimo expects the telecom group’s new co-owner Naguib Sawiris to receive an equal number of seats on the board of Altimo and Norways Telenor.
It is part of Sawiris’ efforts to reboot Orascom Telecom through a number of investment opportunities and with VimpelCom, analysts believe he may have found a key component for the future.
“It is an interesting development that puts Sawiris truly on the global map, if he wasn’t already, and now he has the ability to really move quickly in the investment planning that OT had announced earlier this month,” said Hossam Naguib, an analyst with Egypt’s Stock Market.
By Desmond Shephard
