Richard also said he would like to introduce broadband to both mobiles and fixed-lines in Egypt, where his firm now has control of the country’s largest mobile operator by the number of subscribers, Mobinil.

The deal with Orascom Telecom came after nearly a year of wrangling and has positioned FT as one of the leading providers of mobile phone services in Africa.

“What we want to do is to bring broadband into both mobile and fixed-lines in Egypt,” Richard said. “We want to grow the business, we want to develop the company. We want to bring to the Egyptian market the innovations that the group has in the world,” he added.

Mobinil is Egypt’s largest mobile operator and the French company had long been attempting to take over the company without success.

The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority had previously rejected three offers made by the Paris-based company to acquire the remaining shares of Egypt’s mobile operator as “too low,” saying they were less than the price set by an arbitration ruling for majority of the company.

France Telecom had been seeking to buy all outstanding shares of Mobinil for 237 Egyptian pounds ($42.75) per share, which was much lower that what the regulator was demanding.