Wind announces changes in managerial structure

Those changes included appointing Mr. Khaled Bichara to the post of Head of fixed and portal unit. This sector netted over 1.6 billion Euro in revenue last year alone, worth more than 40% of Wind's business. Wind also owns a mobile network with over 13 million subscribers.

Mr. Bichara was previously the President and CEO of LINKdotNET, the leading ISP and internet services provider in the Middle East. Mr. Bichara will keep his post as President of LINKdotNET along with his responsibilities at Wind's headquarters in Rome.

Upon being appointed to his new post, Mr. Bichara studied Wind's financial position and undertook to prepare a plan of action designed to improve it drastically. Commenting on the rationale behind his appointment to manage this sector of Wind, Mr. Bichara said "the main reason is the success achieved by the team at LINKdotNET which was transformed from an ISP and content provider to the Egyptian market to a true regional player with ambitious plans to expand even beyond the Middle East. This was achieved with the support of the Orascom group, Wind, and Weather."

Mr. Bichara, in his first comments after assuming his post, reiterated that he will seek to pump new investments into Wind in accordance with the company's scheme, which was months in the making. The scheme was a result of a careful study in cooperation with the company's board. The board requested that revenue be maximized, good financial returns be achieved, and several new services such as VoIP, Video on Demand, Triple Play, and several other value added services be introduced.

Mr. Bichara also affirmed that his work in the Egyptian market will not be interrupted; this will continue by way of the planned cooperation between the sectors he will be managing at Wind and LINKdotNET due to both companies' broad experience gleaned from introducing several innovative services to both the Italian and Egyptian markets. He stressed that this sector is very similar in both companies, and that through training and the transfer of experience, both companies will be able to function better.

For his part, Mr. Naguib Sawiris, President of Weather, expressed his confidence in the future success of those managerial changes. He said that the main goal is to restore Wind to its leading role in the Italian communications market. This will allow us to reach the next stage which is to position the company as a major international player. This will be accomplished by supporting the company with qualified and specialized employees, made possible by combining OT and Wind's experience. New investments will also be introduced which will further develop the service sectors Wind operates in (mobile and landline communications and internet services).

Mr. Sawiris pointed out that he is very confident in Mr. Bichara's ability to manage the Landline, Internet, and Portal sector at Wind due to the latter's experience in managing LINKdontNET and him having participated in several important mergers and acquisitions involving that company. He also stated that he is confident that LINKdotNET will continue to implement its ambitious regional expansion plans and will continue to achieve excellent results in accordance with the success of the past few years.

Regarding Wind's position in the telecommunication sector of the Italian market, Mr. Sawiris commented that "Wind enjoys a good reputation in the Italian Market. Its landline communications network comes second after Telecom Italia with 2.5 million subscribers. In the mobile sector, the company is either second or third in the market. Our plan is to become the leading company within two years. This is very achievable given that Wind possesses extensive portal content (about one billion web pages) in addition to possessing vast technical expertise."