Orange Increases Stake in Egypt’s Mobinil for $240 Million

Orange SA agreed to increase its stake in the Egyptian owner of the Mobinil mobile-phone brand for about 210 million euros ($240 million).

Billionaire Naguib Sawiris’s Orascom Telecom Media and Technology SAE agreed to sell its 5 percent direct stake in Egyptian Company for Mobile Services at 280.7 Egyptian pounds ($37) a share, Paris-based Orange said in a statement Monday. That’s a 73 percent premium to the stock’s close on Sunday in Cairo. Orascom will also give up its almost 29 percent voting rights of MT Telecom, the holding company of Mobinil.

The transaction, which will increase Orange’s stake in Mobinil to 99 percent, is part of a 2012 agreement under which Orange acquired most of Sawiris’s stake in the mobile-phone venture for about $2 billion. Mobinil shares have gained about 20 percent in the past year, giving the Cairo-based carrier a market value of about $2.1 billion. It has about 33 million customers.