Beltone Financial says still has chance to seal CI Capital deal

Egypt’s Beltone Financial is still interested in acquiring local investment bank CI Capital and will revive the deal to create one of Egypt’s largest investment banks should it secure regulatory approval, its chief executive said.

Beltone signed an agreement in February to buy CI Capital, part of Egypt’s largest listed company Commercial International Bank, for $104 million.

But the deal failed to secure approval from the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA). The two companies repeatedly renewed the deal pending approval, but allowed the terms to lapse in June.

Beltone CEO Bassem Azab told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit there was still hope the deal would proceed.

“We are ready with the cash and the finance ... We got approval from the general assembly and we are waiting to close the deal,” Azab said in an interview at the summit.

“We are waiting for a comment from EFSA to give us the green light or we stop proceeding in the transaction ... I think we have a chance.”

Already the country’s largest asset manager, Beltone had planned to merge itself with CI Capital to create one of Egypt’s largest intergrated financial institutions.

But EFSA said the deal could not go through until Beltone’s parent company, Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris’s OTMT, resolved a dispute related to the 2011 demerger of Orascom Telecom Holdings, which resulted in OTMT’s current shareholding structure.

Sawiris said in March the deal was being delayed by security concerns and said state meddling in business would discourage investors.

OTMT said this month the dispute had had a bad effect on the company.

There was no immediate comment from EFSA or CI Capital, which owns one of Egypt’s biggest financial leasing firms.

If EFSA rejects the CI Capital deal, Azab said Beltone’s next move would be to pursue other Egyptian leasing businesses, which finance the purchase of assets like real estate.

“We have a number of targets that we are looking at and we are waiting to be in this leasing business ... We have prospects but we did not study any of them yet,” he said.

The company expects to manage three initial public offerings this quarter and two more in the first quarter of next year, with a total value of 3.5-4 billion pounds, Azab said. (RTRS)