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Financial stocks push Egyptian indexes up marginally
Real estate news By Reuters South Africa
Tue 9 Oct 2007, 12:07 GMT
Egypt's main indexes inched up fractionally to new life highs on Tuesday supported by banks and financial stocks although profit-taking in blue chip stocks weighed on the market, brokers said. "The banking sector is taking all the attention now especially as the Al-Watany deal will be finalised tomorrow," said Hashem Ghoneim of el-Nour Securities. National Bank of Kuwait won a bid in August to buy 51 percent of Al-Watany Bank, Egypt's third biggest lender by market value, for more than four times its book value before expanding the offer to 100 percent of the bank, leading to surge in the sector. "This high valuation is still inspiring investors and making such a deep impact on the sector," Ghoneim added.
Brokers said that expectations of strong third quarter results and a possible merger of the Commercial International Bank and Arab African Bank were also boosting the sector. Credit Agricole Bank jumped more than 7 percent early in the session but it last traded 2.7 percent up at 19.69 Egyptian pounds ($3.55), Mohamed Ashmawy of CIBC Brokerage said. Shares of Egypt Kuwait Holding rose 3.5 percent to $2.37 while Naeem Holding gained 2 percent to $2.52. Al-Watany Bank rose 0.6 percent to last trade at 75.50 pounds. "Nevertheless, some big cap banking sector stocks were in the red on profit taking," Ghoneim said.
Shares in Egypt's biggest investment bank EFG-Hermes lost 1.2 percent to 48.60 pounds, while CIB was 0.2 percent down to 80 pounds. Other market heavyweights bucked the upward trend too as Orascom Telecom lost 0.5 percent to 74.02 pounds and Ezz Steel Rebars shed 0.8 percent to 52.96 pounds. Orascom Construction Industries was 1.1 percent down to 470 pounds despite announcing three new projects in Algeria worth over $85 million, brokers said. "The market reaction is not really significant as trading on OCI today was flat," Ashmawy said. Overall, the benchmark Case 30 index gained 0.2 percent to 8,905.74 points, a new life high, while the well watched Hermes index rose 0.3 percent to a record closing of 78,303.77 points. The broader CIBC index was up 0.5 percent to 392.01 points.
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