Wednesday, May 16, 2012
(This story was originally published Tuesday.)
DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding, or OT, said its first-quarter net profit declined 86% compared with the year earlier period when the telco had sold its Tunisian assets.
Orascom Telecom made a first-quarter net profit of $115.7 million, compared with $812.7 million in the same period a year ago, it said in an emailed statement late Monday.
The result missed the $260 million figure that Cairo-based Naeem Brokerage had predicted. Beltone had penciled in a $38 million result.
Earnings per share came in at $0.11 versus $0.78 in the earlier period, the telco said.
"The decrease [in net profit] is a result of the sale of OTH's entire shareholding in Orascom Tunisia Holding and Carthage Consortium through which OTH owned 50% of Orascom Telecom Tunisia for a total cash consideration of $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2011," OT said in the statement.
Orascom Telecom said total subscribers at the end of March increased 15% from the same period last year, reaching more than 82 million customers, "after the exclusion of Alfa, Mobinil, koryolink and Powercom Ltd. subscribers for comparative purposes," OT said.
Revenue for the three-month period reached $899 million, up 10% from the same period in 2011.
Last year, Russian mobile operator VimpelCom acquired the assets of Wind Telecom, Orascom Telecom's parent company, in a deal worth $6 billion.
Orascom Telecom shares closed 0.9% down on Monday at EGP3.35 on the Egyptian Stock Exchange.
-By Shereen El Gazzar, Dow Jones Newswires; +971 444 61684; shereen.elgazzar@dowjones.com
Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
16-05-12 0350GMT
