No one can deny that 25 January 201 l is a remarkable day that changed the course of Egyptian history forever. The political earthquake that shook the country's political foundations reverberated to the economic and business arena affecting virtually all businesses operating in every sector of the economy. For a holding group as diversified as ours, the economic and political turbulence hit us in waves of market threats and opportunities. With four lines of business and a number of diversified investments, the post- revolution period was marked with significant challenges posed to each line of business and investment. Yet the diversification of our portfolio cushioned the effect of a particular event on our overall business performance.

Although the year 2010 marked a significant revenue growth of 36.6% over 2009, the first quarter of 201 l was marked with a perplexing situation for some of our lines of business. The one - week - internet outage and the sabotage incidents to some of our retail outlets caused unfortunate predicament to our contact center and trade lines of business. With vigorous crisis management, call center operations went back to normal swiftly and our retail outlets were restored in a short time. In addition, we also managed to inaugurate two new retail outlets in Mall of Arabia and Downtown Mall in 6th of October and New Cairo, respectively.

Although smart buildings end IT lines of business did not experience direct hits, this year's economic instability might be reflected on customer reluctance to investment. We plan to address the economically challenging end increasingly volatile political scene in Egypt in 2011 through d planned cost reduction strategy, while seizing business expansion opportunities deemed of creating high levels of profitability end maximizing value for shareholders. We ore determined to realize our vision of being one of the strongest holding groups in the region by 2014 with on incredibly diversified investment portfolio end d strong presence in the regional market.

In the wake of the patriotic post - revolution sentiment, we have lunched on inter-company theme entitled “Our People, Our Company, For the Country” that recognizes the need for hard work, positive and respectful attitude in order to give our country d push forward during the current turmoil. The theme reinforces the commitment of our employees to work harder for the benefit of the Egyptian economy; to respect each other and society: to be more socially responsible; and to be more politically aware dnd active. We believe these ore the values needed to be instilled in each dnd every citizen's attitude so that Egypt con stand on its feet again. We ore very optimistic about Egypt’s future and, despite current economic volatility dnd political instability, we are positive that further growth is yet to come for our business and for our economy. And till this prosperity is achieved for Egypt, we will keep chanting “Our People, Our Company, For the Country.