The Middle East's largest investment bank, EFG-Hermes has been awaiting notice from Egypt's financial regulator for the approval of its merger with QInvest of Qatar.

Share values of EFG-Hermes increased by 6% after a newspaper reported that Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil told a group of Qatari businessmen during a trip to Doha that the deal would be completed by the end of the week.

According to an EFG-Hermes spokesman as told to Reuters, "EFG-Hermes Holding has not been informed of any development and accordingly we have published a disclosure to the EGX (Cairo Stock Exchange) this morning confirming that we didn't receive a 'no-objection' response on the deal till date."

As for the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority, the spokesman had no immediate comment.

In an emailed statement from EFG to Reuters, because of the lack of any received regulatory approval as of the moment, 'it may be difficult to implement the terms of the joint venture signed last May.'