Word: orascom
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With all the turmoil in the Middle East, few took much notice when Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris signed a deal last December involving a firm from a neighboring country. This was no routine transaction. Sawiris, CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, in Cairo, purchased 9.9% of Partner Telecommunications Co. Ltd., in Tel Aviv, considered to be the biggest investment, valued at $150 million, ever made in the Jewish state by an investor from an Arab country. Sawiris expected the rebukes he received from some fellow Arabs for doing business with Israelis even as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still rages...
...Rachid, Sawiris is the model Arab globalist. He is intent on making Orascom no less than the world's No. 1 cell-phone operator, a dynasty that will dominate the sector with a handful of others following the industry's inevitable consolidation. His recent investment in Israel is merely part of Orascom's $1.3 billion acquisition of a 19.3% stake in Hutchison Telecom, based in Hong Kong. Sawiris seeks to increase his stake to 51%, thereby extending Orascom's reach to Southeast Asia through Hutchison's businesses in India, Indonesia and Vietnam. From relatively small beginnings less than a decade...
...Middle East--style. One of his first ventures beyond Egypt was in strife-torn Algeria, where his successful 2001 bid for a cell-phone license turned out to be twice that of his nearest competitor, which led to the creation of an operator called Djezzy. Soon he had turned Orascom's $400 million investment into an asset worth some $4 billion. Later, in 2003, it was the same story in Iraq: Orascom set up the country's first cell-phone network, IraQna, after the fall of Baghdad. He invested $40 million in IraQna's start-up, which he estimates...
...third largest mobile-phone service, but it has never made a profit. Moreover, given Sawiris' focus on bringing phone service to developing countries, it's hard to see the attraction of Italy, a wealthy nation saturated with telefonini. That's one reason Sawiris is investing his own money, not Orascom's. "It doesn't fit," he acknowledges--at least not for now. Yet Sawiris can point to his record of success in unlikely places: "When I went into Algeria and Pakistan, people thought I was crazy. They still think I'm crazy because I'm in Iraq." --With reporting...
Risky Business Orascom has tripled its subscribers in three years by focusing on developing markets like Iraq and Algeria