Cairo: EFG-Hermes Holding SAE said it will hold a second shareholder meeting on September 16 to review the proposed creation of an investment bank with Qatar’s QInvest, after the deal failed to get regulatory approval in Egypt.
The meeting will discuss terms of the agreement including a condition that the Cairo-based company won’t compete with the entity to be established in Doha and will cede to it the EFG- Hermes trademark within a year of completing the transaction, EFG-Hermes said in a filing to the Egyptian bourse.
The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority last month suspended a June decision by shareholders of EFG-Hermes, the biggest publicly traded Arab investment bank, to proceed with the deal because it said the company didn’t give them enough details. Lower regional trading volumes have hurt EFG-Hermes’ brokerage business, contributing to a 66 per cent decline in second-quarter profit from a year earlier.
The meeting will discuss the plan for QInvest, a unit of Qatar Islamic Bank, to invest $250 million (Dh919.5 million) in EFG-Hermes Qatar, which will allow it to own 60 per cent of the company and give it the option to buy the remaining stake at a minimum $165 million, EFG-Hermes said. The impact on the company’s capital from a proposed dividend distribution of 4 Egyptian pounds a share is also on the agenda, the company said.
