CI CapitalHolding Co SAE CEO Mahmoud Atalla said parent company granted Beltone Financial Holdings a two-week extension on thedeadline to put together an offer to acquire CI Capital, Reuters reported April28, the day of the offer's initial deadline.

Commercial International Bank agreed in February tosell CI Capital toEgyptian billionaire Naguib Sawaris' Orascom Telecom and Media TechnologyHolding and subsidiary Beltone Financial for 924 million Egyptian pounds. Anongoing court case had threatened to delay the sale of the Egyptian investment bank, but theEgyptian Court of Cassation stepped in and overturned a ruling obliging Commercial InternationalBank to submit a mandatory tender offer for claimant shares in CI Capital.

As of April 27, US$1 was equivalent to 8.88 Egyptianpounds.