EFG-Hermes Soars on Buyback After Trades Annulled - Bloomberg

EFG-Hermes Soars on Buyback After Trades Annulled - Bloomberg:

"EFG-Hermes Holding SAE jumped on a share buyback plan after yesterday’s trades in the Egyptian investment bank were canceled on suspicion of insider trading.

The stock soared by the daily limit of 10 percent to 9.79 Egyptian pounds at the close in Cairo, the highest since February, after EFG-Hermes’s board approved a 1 billion-pound ($143 million) purchase of its own shares. The benchmark EGX 30 Index advanced 1.3 percent.

Yesterday’s transactions were annulled after the stock gained the most since July on volumes of 2.5 times the three-month daily average. The moves led the bourse to suspect an information leak, said an official who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak on the matter. Investigations of insider trading are almost always settled out of court in Egypt, according to Wafik Dawood, director of institutional sales Mega Investments Securities.

“An exceptional rally on exceptional volumes triggers a red flag for the bourse,” Cairo-based Dawood said by phone. “Usually insider trading is pretty hard to detect. In this case, the leakage was obvious.”"

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