Menatel

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In March 1998, Menatel was awarded a 10-year license to provide payphones in Egypt. According with the license requirements, the company had to install 20,000 payphones within five years. The company was owned by France Telecom (44%), National Bank of Egypt and its Egyptel subsidiary (18% each), Orascom Group (10%), and Ascom Monetel (5%). The company started to install its payphones in the second semester of 1998. It had 1,000 payphones installed by end of 1998. The company, which had a paid capital of US$10 million, expected to install 500 payphones per month in 1999. The total cost of the project was estimated between US$40 million and US$50 million. The company competed with the local incumbent Telecom Egypt and with Nile Telecom (Nile Telecom was also awarded a 10-year license to provide 20,000 payphones in Egypt in 1998). Orascom sold its stake in the company in 2002 for an undisclosed amount. As of end 2003, shareholders in Menatel included the state-owned National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and its subsidiary Egytel with an 18% stake each, Egypt's state-owned fixed line operator Telecom Egypt (TE) with 2%, Egyptian telecoms holding company National Telecommunications Company (NTC) with 2.3% and local Advanced Projects & Systems Co (Adcom) with 7.0%. A total of 47% was held as treasury stock and the remaining shares were held by individual investors. As of end 2004, 31,264 payphones were operated by Menatel. In 2005, the contract was extended to 2015. http://www.menatel.com.eg/about.htm