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Head of Egypt's Wind Telecom expectsVimpelcom board seats in 6 monthsNaguib Sawiris' firm will ask Russian mobile operator for seats at first shareholdermeeting following its takeover of Orascom Telecom and WindWind Telecom'schairman sees thecompany getting three seatson Russian mobile operatorVimpelcom's board withinsix months if an existingshareholders agreement isscrapped.Egyptian tycoon NaguibSawiris' firm will ask Vimpelcomfor the seats in thefirst shareholders' meetingafter any cancellation of theagreement, which gives keyVimpelcom stakeholders Altimoand Telenor three boardseats each."Sawiris explained ... thatWind has a 34 per centvoting right, by virtue ofthe deal, which gives it aright to get three seats onVimpelcom's board, and suchprocedures could end withinsix months," the report said.A spokeswoman for OrascomTelecom, which is owned byWind, confirmed the report.Sawiris became a 30.6 percent shareholder in Vimpelcomlast month after Russia'sNo. 3 mobile phone operatorclosed a more than US$6 billiondeal for Wind Telecom,including Orascom Telecomand Italy's Wind.Vimpelcom's key Russianshareholder Altimo said inApril it expected to scrap a2009 shareholder agreementwith Norway's Telenor toallow Sawiris roughly equalrights in Vimpelcom. TEgypt bustsillegaltelecomsnetworkAn Egyptian military courtsentenced 16 people to jail forestablishing an illegal telecom networkenabling phone calls via Israel. Localmedia reported, that an Israeli andtwo Palestinians were among thosesentenced to 15 years in jail for thenetwork.The state-owned daily newspaper saidthat two Egyptians, Ahmed Metwalliand Ahmed al-Badri, were jailed for 15years, while the Israeli and Palestinianswere sentenced in absentia.Terms ranging from four months toone year were handed to 11 peoplewhile 11 others were acquitted, thenewspaper reported.The group is said to have set up a telecommunicationnetwork that allowedcallers to make unauthorized internationalcalls through Israel, costing thestate-owned Egypt Telecom some 280million Egyptian pounds ($47 million)in losses. Analysts feel the move ispositive and is likely to hold those accountablefor illegal activity.“We are definitely watching the proceedingsbecause it is important to thefuture of telecom market in Egypt,”said Ismail Ramadan, a securitiesanalyst based in Cairo. “Because withso much corruption and illegal activity,there needs to be accountability andthis is a good start.” T48 www.teletimesinternational.com15Jun - 14Jul 2011