Sunday, Jun 03, 2012

CAIRO (Zawya Dow Jones)--EFG Hermes said a majority of shareholders--including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Dubai Financial Group--support a deal with Qatar's QInvest, while Egypt's biggest publicly traded investment bank wasn't legally obligated to co-operate with Planet IB, a consortium of investors, who launched a rival bid last week.

Mona Zulficar, EFG's chairperson, who read out the letter from Planet during a shareholder meeting Saturday, said there is no legal obligation to accept the Planet IB offer as the group didn't give details of shareholders, or people behind the deal, or how they would finance the deal, she said in a statement Sunday.

In a regulatory filing earlier Sunday, EFG Hermes said Planet's offer didn't provide a commitment that a bid would be presented after due diligence and lacked details on the "financing resources for the bid and information about the investors financing it".

Planet IB launched its bid for the EFG Hermes Wednesday, pitting the consortium of Arab investors and Egyptian bankers against QInvest, just weeks after EFG and QInvest had agreed on a deal to create a joint investment bank with operations across the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Asia.

With EFG Hermes' shareholders approving the strategic partnership with the Qatari bank, QInvest will now hold 60% of the capital of the new combined bank, with the remainder being held by the Cairo-based investment bank.

Planet IB said in a statement Saturday it had offered 13.50 Egyptian pounds ($2.24) a share to buy 100% of the bank. EFG Hermes shares last traded 0.7% higher at EGP11.05 Sunday.

"If EFG Hermes is serious about entertaining a tender offer from Planet IB, it must immediately postpone the execution of the alternative transaction," Planet said in the statement posted on its website.

Nasr El Din El Houssieny, the investor relations manager at Planet, said: "We have submitted an appeal [to the regulator] not against the merger but against not having enough chance to conduct due diligence in order to place a tender."

-By Farah Halime; Contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; +20111 4994453

Fhalime@gmail.com

Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-06-12 1118GMT