Orascom's Sawiris Steps Down As Mobinil Chairman

Egypt's Naguib Sawiris is to stand down as the Chairman of local mobile operator, Mobinil from the end of this month. The company's current CEO, Alex Shalaby will take over as Chairman and his role will be taken up by Hassan Kabbani - currently CEO of Algerian operator, Djezzy.

Mobinil is controlled by France Telecom and Orascom Telecom, with 29% floated on the Cairo stock exchange. There have been strained relations between Orascom and France Telecom, with the latter initiating legal action against FT last December due to disagreement over the strategy of MobiNil. Both companies have agreed to settle their disputes in the International Court of Arbitration.

The company is the largest operator in the market, and according to figures from the Mobile World database, ended Q1 '08 with just over 15 million subscribers and a market share of 51.5%.

Mobinil recently reported that its first-quarter net profit grew 14% to 451 million Egyptian pounds ($84 million) from EGP397 million a year earlier. The company's revenue also surged 27% to EGP2.3 billion from EGP1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2007.

Sawiris is also the Chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom, and Chairman of the board of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni.

On the web: Mobile World - Mobinil

Posted to the site on 24th August 2008