Orascom Construction Industries, one of Egypt's largest publicly traded firms, predicts a tremendous upsurge in more than seven years. This comes after the company gained approval to purchase shares from regulatory agencies in the country.

The company's shares rose by the maximum limit allowable to firms in a single trading day (10 percent).  This is also the maximum surge of the company on a closing basis since January 2006, equal to 238.09 Egyptian pounds.

The market value of the company increased to 49.8 billion Egyptian pounds or US$7.1 billion.

Orascom Construction Industries' shareholders are permitted to trade their assets for shares in OCI NV based in the Netherlands. Another option given to them is to sell their stocks at 255 Egyptian pounds each, according to OCI NV in a statement made yesterday. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority supervised the tender.

Beltone Financial Holding, a firm based in Cairo, commented on the matter saying, "We recommend taking the cash offer as we believe OCI's liquidity will likely be negatively impacted subsequent to the completion of the transaction."