The United tobacco company, a subsidiary of Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, is negotiating with the Egyptian government to purchase a minority stake in the eastern smoke company, which owns an estimated 75% market share of the cigarette market in Egypt and has a market value of about 39 billion pounds (1.3 billion dollars), according to Two government sources spoke to " eastern economy”
In order to provide dollar liquidity, Egypt recently worked on selling some of its assets to investors, and succeeded in raising up to 1.9 billion dollars, and hopes to raise another billion dollars from the sale of additional assets over the next few period
United tobacco did not respond to requests from "eastern economy" for comment
One of the two people familiar with the file told Al-eqtisad Al-Sharq that the negotiations”between (United tobacco) and the government are represented by the holding company and the Ministry of Finance and not with the sovereign fund of Egypt.. The size of the stake is the government's biggest concern at the moment, which there is hesitation about so as not to lose the majority stake in the company.”
The ownership of “eastern smoke” is distributed between the holding company for chemical industries affiliated to the government and owns about 51%, and The ألان investment fund “Alan Gray” owner of about 7.2% of the shares, and the "Union of employees shareholders" 5.2%, while the remaining shares are free to trade on the Egyptian Stock Exchange
In 2019, the government sold up to 4.5% of its shares in” eastern smoke " worth 180 million dollars at that time
The company "Philip Morris" paid about 450 million dollars to obtain the new license for the production of traditional and electronic cigarettes in Egypt during June 2022, in a bid from which all foreign companies operating in the country withdrew because they objected to the terms of the license
"Alsharqiya Al Dukhan" owns a 24% stake in United tobacco, according to the license obtained by the latter company, which agreement with “alsharqiya Al Dukhan " stipulates that if any of the tobacco companies operating in Egypt or abroad owns 10% of the shares of “alsharqiya Al Dukhan” otherwise, Philip Morris has the right The purchase of the share of "eastern smoke" in "United tobacco" at face value, in addition to 108 million dollars, which is equal to 24% of the value of the license paid
Source : Pulse
