By Andrew Raven

Cancel the drumroll. For the eighth straight year, Orascom Telecom (OT) has finished atop our annual ranking of the biggest companies in Egypt.

Even a politically-charged confrontation with the Algerian government, a simmering dispute with France Telecom over jointly-held Mobinil, and the maturation of mobile markets were not enough to unseat the country’s most resilient company.

In fact, it wasn’t even close. OT’s revenues of LE 29 billion were 40% more than the second place finisher on the list, sister company Orascom Construction.

But there are serious questions about whether the company’s reign could be coming to an end. The dispute with Algiers, which arose following a pair of violence-filled football matches last year, threatens to cost OT its biggest subsidiary, Djezzy.

Combine that with the looming saturation of Egypt’s mobile market and the company’s impending sale of internet provider LinkDotNet, and analysts are wondering where core growth is going to come from.

One man who is confident is CEO Khalid Bichara, who sat down with Business Today in an exclusive interview to talk about the company’s plans for the future. (See the article on page 62.)

Orascom isn’t the only company on the bt100 that had a challenging year. While firms didn’t bleed red ink like some of their Western counterparts, the global financial crisis took a toll on multinationals and exporters. Seven of the top 10 companies on the bt100 saw revenues fall last year; the profits across the top 10 dropped by 30%.

Still, if 2009 proved anything it’s that the biggest firms in the country are on solid footing: Only four companies on our list lost money in 2009.

The specter of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has cast a shadow over markets, but as our reporters catalogue in the following pages, there are plenty of reasons for optimism.

Egypt’s long-dormant small cap exchange, the Nilex, roared back to life last month (see story on page 88), the corporate bond market looks set to take off (page 66) and a newly-minted investor relations body could cut through the din of corporate accounting (page 82).

In the following pages we also look at the mushrooming market for middle-income housing (page 70) and the potential impact of 2011’s presidential election on the markets (page 74), among other compelling stories.

Plus, as usual, we have reams of data (charts start on page 97) and biographies of all 100 companies on our list (page 1150.

As always, the bt100 is all about revenue. Since our inaugural issue, we have held that no other metric is a better indicator of the size of a company’s operations or contribution to the economy.

As was the case last year, this list ranks the 100 largest companies (as determined by their market capitalization) according to their revenues.

The list is compiled by the research team at Beltone Financial, a leading Middle East and North Africa investment bank. The first cut was the easiest for Head of Research Angus Blair and his team to make as they narrowed down the list of candidates from the thousands of companies registered in Egypt to the couple of hundred still listed on the EGX in April 2010.

Listed companies are required by law to file audited annual results with the EGX, outlining everything from revenues and profits to cash flow and assets, making objective rankings possible.

As always, we would have loved to have included companies operating in Egypt that are privately held, listed offshore or solely owned by foreign-listed multinationals, but there is no requirement that they disclose audited financials.

The next cut came as we chose the 100 largest and most valuable companies on the EGX as determined by the simple metric of market capitalization.

The final cut was the actual ranking, as Beltone’s research team tracked down 2009 financials for all of the finalists.

As with the last two years, we have ranked the companies based on their own financial years, meaning we have abandoned the sum-of-halves methodology we previously used. Each company’s fiscal year is clearly marked on the main bt100.

One important note: We have ranked companies based on operating revenues, which for banks translates to gross interest income and for all companies excludes events such as sales of assets or other one-time gains.

All categories by which the bt100 are evaluated are fully explained below. Attentive readers will note that some 2008 figures for revenue, net profit, assets, price-earnings ratio (PE) and earnings per share (EPS) differ from those we reported for the same companies in last year’s edition. This is a result of companies re-stating their financials following comments from their auditors, regulators and/or the EGX. It may also result from Beltone having tightened its requirements for what counts as pure operating revenue.

You can have confidence that our ranking and methodology meet the toughest standards, just as it has every year since our first bt100 issue hit newsstands eight years ago. PricewaterhouseCoopers Egypt has certified that the rankings and the numbers on which they’re based are both unadulterated and as accurate as possible.

Revenue: Revenue is the entire amount of income (including interest earned, receipts from sales, services provided, rents and royalties) before any deductions are made.

The bt100 are ranked by audited revenue figures disclosed by the individual companies to the Egyptian Stock Exchange in their annual financial reports. All listed companies are required to include the financial results of all subsidiaries, and if those subsidiaries are also listed under their stock symbol, the revenue will be accounted for under both tickers. Unless otherwise noted, all companies on the list trade in Egyptian pounds.

net profit: A profit is achieved after taxes, extraordinary credits or charges that appear on a company’s income statement are deducted, and after all accounting changes are made. Figures with a negative sign (-) indicate a loss. If a company had a loss in 2008 and a profit in 2009, or a loss in both 2008 and 2009, or a profit in 2008 and a loss in 2009, the percentage change is mathematically misleading and therefore is marked with N/A (not applicable).

total assets: Assets represent any item of economic value owned by a company that could be converted into cash. Examples are cash, securities, accounts receivable, inventory, office equipment, buildings, cars and other property.

MARKET CAPITALIZATION: The market price of the publicly traded portion of the company, calculated by multiplying the number of shares outstanding by the price per share. These numbers were calculated as of December 31, 2009. Many bt100 companies have less than 50% of their total equity listed on the EGX.

SHARE PRICE: The cost per share in Egyptian pounds for that company’s stock as of December 31, 2009. Note that for companies that executed stock splits in 2009, we have used an adjusted figure for 2008 to allow a proper comparison.

EPS: Earnings per share is the portion of a company’s profits allocated to each outstanding share of common stock, calculated as net income minus dividends on preferred stocks, then divided by the average number of outstanding shares. Note that for companies that executed stock splits in 2009, we have used an adjusted figure for 2008 to allow a proper comparison.

PER: A share’s price-earnings ratio (P/E) is a valuation of a company’s share price compared to earnings per share, calculated as the price per share divided by earnings per share.

FASTEST-GROWING LIST: The Fastest-Growing Listed Companies in Egypt list is a ranking of this year’s bt100 companies based on their percentage of revenue growth from 2008 to 2009.

Top PROFITABILITY GAINERS LIST: The Top Profitability Gainers list is a ranking of this year’s bt100 companies according to their gains in return on revenue (ROR) between 2008 and 2009. ROR is defined as net income divided by revenue and is expressed in percent. The difference between net income and revenue is expenses, so an increasing ROR implies a higher net income achieved with lower expenses. bt