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Egypt stocks up on foreign buying, OCI results

Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:47am EDT

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CAIRO, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Egyptian stock indexes rose for a second day on Thursday, boosted by strong results by market heavyweight Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) (OCIC.CA) (OCICq.L) and an influx of foreign investors buying into blue-chips, traders said.

"There are opportunities in the market; we're trading at cheap multiples, plus the results of OCI were in line with expectations... and OCI has been a market leader recently," said Mohamed Kotb of Jazira Asset Management.

Orascom Construction Industries said on Thursday second-quarter net income from continuing operations more than tripled to $239.5 million, higher than forecasts by two brokerages.

Shares in the company, Egypt's largest listed builder, were the most heavily traded stock by value on Thursday, and last traded 2.13 percent higher at 339.70 Egyptian pounds per share.

Kotb said the rise was driven by foreign buying on the market, mainly on big caps like Commercial International Bank (CIB) (COMI.CA) (COMIq.L), investment bank EFG-Hermes (HRHO.CA) (HRHOq.L), OCI and Orascom Telecom (ORTE.CA) (ORTEq.L).

Foreigners were net buyers on Thursday, by a margin of 56.04 million Egyptian pounds.

Orascom Telecom saw its shares gain 3.03 percent to 54.80 pounds. Orascom Construction Industries and Orascom Telecom together constitute about 50 percent of the benchmark CASE 30 index .CASE30, which paced gains by OCI to close 2.09 percent higher at 8,375.24 points.

Shares in EFG-Hermes last traded 3.56 percent higher at 47.47 pounds per share, while Commercial International Bank's shares rose 3.52 percent to last trade at 46.75 percent. ($1 = 5.37 Egyptian pounds) (Writing by Aziz El-Kaissouni)



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