Vodafone should offer a capital gain of $ 1.7 billion if the recently announced sale of its 55% stake in the capital of its Egyptian subsidiary is finalized. The British telecommunications group has recently announced that it had reached an agreement with the Saudi Saudi Telecom Company which offered it $ 2.39 billion for the resumption of its shares.
Vodafone arrived in the land of the pharaohs in 1998 by offering itself at the time, 30% stake in the capital of the company Misrfone which was awarded an operator license in the same year. For this, he had spent the sum of £ 100 million. A year later, it finalized the acquisition of the American operator Airtouch, the other shareholder of Misrfone with an almost identical stake size.
In its 1999 annual report , Vodafone stated that on the transaction which resulted in the merger with Airtouch, it had to pay £ 326 million at the time for the acquisition of additional shares in Misrfone. If we take the pound sterling / US dollar exchange rate for that period, the total value paid out is equivalent to $ 681.6 million.
Let us recall that this added value estimated by the Ecofin Agency, corresponds only to the remaining share of the British group in the capital of Vodafone Egypt. According to a statement made on the site of the American Commission of surveillance of the financial markets in 2004, Vodafone indicated having on May 16, 2003, found an agreement with the French Vivendi which was also co-shareholder, and which yielded to him 7% of participation. However, the amount spent on this operation had not been disclosed.
Thereafter, Telecom Egypt, which is today the other shareholder of Vodafone Egypt, will increase its participation by acquiring shares in the British group. But here too, there is little information on the financial value of the transaction. The completion of this operation will put an end to 22 years of Egyptian presence for the Vodafone group as operator.