Enel Denies Report Of Quick Sale Of 26% Weather Stake

ROME -(Dow Jones)- Italy's largest electricity company Enel, Friday denied a newspaper report that it plans to proceed speedily with the sale of its 26% stake in telecommunications group Weather Investments to Egyptian Chairman Naguib Sawiris, who owns the rest of the company.

Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported Thursday that Enel was in talks with Sawiris to sell its stake for between EUR2-2.3 billion.

In a statement, Enel said its stake in Weather Investments is subject to a lock-up agreement, under which Enel is to retain the stake until Weather Investments is floated on the stock-exchange.

Sawiris' Weather Investments vehicle controls 100% of Italian mobile-phone operator Wind, after Enel sold Wind to Sawiris in a complex deal last summer.

As part of the same transaction, Sawiris transferred to Weather Investments around 50% of his Cairo-based mobile operator Orascom Telecom Holding.

The Italian power company had always intended to pull out when Weather Investments was listed. But Italian newspapers recently suggested that plans have been altered, as it is now Wind that is set to list rather than its parent company.

Enel said in the statement that under its agreement with Sawiris any change to the plan to list Weather Investments must have its approval.

It added that it hasn't received any proposal for a listing for Wind, and that no talks are under way to sell its 26% stake in Weather Investments.

-By Luca Di Leo and Giada Zampano, Dow Jones Newswires; +39 06 6782543; luca.dileo@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 6th October 2006