Weather Investments – holding company and owner of Italy’s Wind and Egypt’s Orascom – is close to selling a 10% stake in its operation to a private equity group. “We’re near the end to finalise, I think before the end of this month,” Naguib Sawiris, CEO of Weather Investments, told Bloomberg News in an interview at the World Economic Forum. “Around February we should close that.” He declined to name the potential purchasers or a possible price tag.

Previous reports have tipped New York-based Blackstone as an interested bidder, while others suggested that Deutsche Telekom may be planning a joint bid with a private equity firm. Weather bought 63% of Wind, Italy’s third largest mobile phone operator, in 2005 for US$4.4 billion. It acquired the remaining shares in 2006 for US$2.9 billion. It also holds a 51% stake in Orascom, the Cairo-based group, which operates in nine Middle Eastern and African nations, with a total of 65 million subscribers. Last month Orascom denied speculation it was in talks with major European operators over a possible sale of the company for up to US$17 billion.