[2007-08-01]  Egypt's indexes decline as CIB and OCI slide
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian indexes fell on Sunday as foreign investors sold big caps including Commercial International Bank (CIB) and Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), brokers said.

"The decline in nearly all global markets led stocks with more foreign interest to go lower, creating a general bearish mood as buyers generally shied away," Mohamed Radwan of Delta Securities said.

Global equity markets ended the week with some Wall Street indexes giving their worst performance since September 2002 and heavy losses in London and Tokyo as credit market concerns battered prices.

"Foreign investors sold double what they bought while Arab investors were selling more than that," said Hossam Abdel Rahman of Optima Securities.

According to Abdel Rahman, stocks with GDRs in London like CIB and OCI were the most vulnerable.

Heavily traded CIB dropped six percent to end at 68 Egyptian pounds, while OCI shares were down 5.6 percent to 388 pounds.

Other market heavyweights also closed lower including investment bank EFG-Hermes, which lost 3.9 percent to end at 46.70 pounds while Orascom Telecom lost 3.2 percent to 75.75 pounds.

Sixth of October Development and Investment (SODIC) fell 4.7 percent to 162.52 pounds and Medinet Nasr Housing was 1.2 percent down at 286.89 pounds.

But Alexandria Real Estate Investment rose 1.1 percent to 415 pounds as it continued to get a boost from a buyout offer by the Talaat Mustafa Group.

Talaat Mustafa said on Thursday it had made an offer to buy Alexandria Real Estate, its partly-owned subsidiary, for 394 Egyptian pounds per share in an equity swap as part of wider expansion plans.

Also bucking the trend was the mobile operator Mobinil, which gained 0.4 percent to 182 pounds ahead of second quarter financial results due out next week.

Overall, the well watched Case 30 index fell 3.1 percent to close at 8,217.22 points. The benchmark Hermes index lost 2.6 percent to 72,464.12 points, and the broader CIBC index was 0.9 percent down at 345.40 points.

© Reuters 2007
Source: © Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.