Egypt’s Edita public offering oversubscribed by 4.5 times

The public tranche of Egyptian foodmaker Edita’s (EFID) secondary share issue on the Cairo bourse was 4.5 times oversubscribed, the company said in a statement on the stock exchange on Tuesday.

The company launched a private institutional offering of shares on the Egyptian stock exchange (EGX) and global depository receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange last Friday.

The shares offered Tuesday on the Cairo bourse will trade at 18.50 Egyptian pounds per share, the statement said, the same as the EGX-listed institutional shares offered last week.

 “God willing, we will begin trading the stock on Thursday,” Edita chief executive Hani Birzi told Reuters in a telephone interview.

A flurry of mergers and rights issues have boosted activity on the Cairo exchange, which had struggled to win investor confidence during four years of political and economic turmoil since the Arab Spring uprising.

Egypt’s government last year launched long-delayed reforms aimed at luring back foreign investors and shoring up growth while cutting a ballooning budget deficit.

Food is seen as a fast-growing sector in the most populous Arab nation of 87 million people.

Edita is being advised by Goldman Sachs and EFG Hermes. Source: Arab Finance