National banks are key CIB share purchasers in EGX: Expert
Doaa A.Moneim, , Sunday 25 Oct 2020
The CIB’s shares were traded today at EGP 62, down from EGP 66.5 before the bank’s crisis, witnessing a trade volume of 3.5 million shares during Sunday’s session


The Commercial International Bank (CIB) has managed to offset 3 percent of its losses in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) at the closing session on Sunday, after losing 10 percent of its shares' value during the reading session, financial markets expert and head of the financial markets committee at the African Economic Council Ayman Fouda told Ahram Online.

Egypt’s Stock Exchange resumed on Sunday, trading CIB’s shares after suspending them on Thursday at the request of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA).

On Thursday, the FRA filed a request to the Egyptian stock market to suspend the trading of CIB’s shares on the back of the controversial resignation of CIB’s chairman and managing director Hisham Ezz El-Arab, over what a leaked document from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) described as “serious violations of the Central Bank’s laws, decisions and norms.”

TheCIB’s shares were traded today at EGP 62, down from EGP 66.5 before the bank’s crisis, witnessing a trade volume of 3.5 million shares during Sunday’s session.

National banks acquired 22 percent of the total purchases of CIB shares, with a total of EGP 38 million, according to Fouda.

Given that the CIB's shares traded at EGP 62 by the end of Sunday’s session, Fouda expected that the shares will witness a rise in their trading value during Monday’s session, expecting them to reach EGP 64 and to bounce back before the end of the week.

During the opening of Sunday’s trading session, the CIB's shares fell by 10 percent, the maximum allowed decline limit, which pushed Egypt's stock market to suspend trading on them for 10 minutes, after which trading resumed.

Egypt’s national banks, who own shares in CIB already, were the key purchasers of CIB’s shares today, as they sought to increase their current share portion to more than 17 percent of the total bank's shares.

Fouda explains that the CBE is the body concerned with giving the national banks the green light to increase their portions in specific banks’ shares that are listed on the stock market.

The CIB is a leading private sector bank operating in the Egyptian market, which was deemed by Global Finance in 2020 as the best treasury and cash management provider in Egypt, the best foreign exchange provider in Egypt, and the best bank in Egypt.

In 2020, the bank was also awarded the best regional bank in North Africa award from the African Banker, and the best bank in Egypt award from Euromoney.
The bank reported net profits of EGP 4.997 billion during the first half of 2020, and its total assets amount to $24.89 billion, according to CIB online data.

On Friday, the CBE appointed Sherif Sami as the new chairman of the CIB after he was chosen by the bank’s board of directors to be a non-executive director of the bank, succeeding Ezz El-Arab.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/389136.aspx