French conglomerate Bouygues – owner of the country’s number three mobile network – has said it has no plans to sell to Orascom, despite Orascom chairman Naguib Sawiris (pictured) earlier saying he was interested in making the deal. “Selling Bouygues Telecom is not on the agenda,” a Bouygues spokeswoman told Dow Jones Newswires. Orascom’s Sawiris had earlier told French newspaper, La Tribune, that “we would be interested if they had the intention to sell.” He added that a deal would “reinforce our presence in the Mediterranean, improve our roaming possibilities, there would be many synergies.”

Orascom operates in a number of North African and Middle Eastern markets, including Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan and Tunisia, and has stakes in the WIND mobile networks in Italy and Greece. Sawiris ruled out a merger with a larger player such as AT&T, Vodafone or Telefonica, but said he could see “billions of dollars” of possible synergies with “smaller players” in Europe. Earlier this month, Orascom reported net profit of US$180.9 million for the third quarter, almost double what it recorded in the year earlier quarter. It attributed the increase to a recovery in local currencies in many of its emerging markets.