Orascom Telecom Media & Technology Holding SAE may consider buying telecommunication assets in countries such as Libya, Syria and Yemen if the post-Arab Spring governments in those nations seek investments, outgoing Chief Executive Officer Khalid Bichara said.
“We’re looking at some markets post Arab Spring government-owned assets,” Bichara said in an interview in London on Tuesday. “They’ll eventually have to find a way to manage them - either they’ll tender them out for sale or they’ll get companies to manage them. We’ll be ready for that whether through investing or through management contracts.”
Cairo-based Orascom Telecom Media, whose shareholders will meet this week to vote on a 1.05 Egyptian-pound dividend, is debt-free and would be able to fund investments with bank loans, said Bichara, who was in the UK. to mark the first day of trading in the company’s global deposit receipts on the London Stock Exchange. The company, controlled by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, is looking to grow its cables business, and may sell assets of its Orascom Telecom Ventures unit, Bichara said.
(Source: Gulf News)
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