Orascom shareholders appeal to Algerian President Bouteflika to thrash out solution to “Djezzy crisis”

The shareholders of the Egyptian company “Orascom Telecom” have called on Algerian President Abdellaziz Bouteflika and his Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia to take the necessary measures to settle for good the lingering crisis surrounding Orascom's local mobile unit “Djezzy”.

• In an urgent letter addressed to the Algerian head of state through Algeria’s Ambassador posted in Cairo Abdelkader Hadjar, a host of anxious Egyptian shareholders at the Egyptian stock exchange said that such a crisis was highly detrimental to their financial interests as they have nothing to do with it in terms of accountability, as they put it.
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• They asserted that the current showdown opposing Orascom Telecom and the Algerian government was not at all of their own making stressing that their only objective was to safeguard their legitimate interests through an early and salutary settlement of this crisis thanks to the intervention of Algeria’s highest authorities.
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• Meanwhile in a separate development,  Orascom CEO Naguib Sawiris told a Norwegian newspaper that the chances of completing a $6.6bn merger between his company Orascom and Russian mobile operator Vimpelcom were at best 50 percent.
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• Sawiris was quoted by the Norwegian daily as saying that Norway’s Telenor – which owns nearly 40 percent of Vimpelcom – was “not motivated” to see out the merger, which faces hurdles in Algeria due to back-tax claims amounting to several hundred million dollars as well as regulatory issues in other countries.
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• Algeria is threatening to nationalize tax-ridden Orascom’s local unit “Djezzy”, and Orascom has assets in Bangladesh and Pakistan where Telenor also has mobile operations.
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• Telenor has repeatedly aired doubts over the dubious Vimpelcom-Orascom deal. Late last month it asked for clarification of the merger parameters before Vimpelcom’s board makes a final decision on the deal.
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