By Ahmed Allam
Cairo – Mubasher: Orange Egypt, formerly Mobinil, has started up EGX IPO procedures, said Atef Helmy, Orange’s chairman, declining to announce IPO’s timing or stake.
The mobile phone operator has hired a specialized firm to determine the timing and to advise on the share floatation, the chairman added.
At the present time, Orange’s free float amounts to 4 million shares, or 4% of capital which is still 6% below the 10% requirement as per EGX regulations.
Concerning the company’s financials, Helmy said the company turned into profitability in the first quarter of 2016, assuring that the management is determined to maintain and sustain the rhythm of profitability by expenditure rationalization.
Moreover, the company is planning “to expand its customer base and to offer 4G services, once the state update cell phone operators on 4G frequencies”.
Earlier, the rebranded company revealed that its losses for the first quarter of 2016 decreased by 65% year-over-year to EGP12.3 million from EGP35 million.
Meanwhile, the unaudited standalone financial statements referred to a turn into profitability after achieving a net profit of EGP21.8 million in Q1-16, against a net loss of EGP5.3 million for the year-ago quarter.
Translated by Ahmed El-Sayed Ali
