Egypt's Ghabbour to invest $2.5 mln in Algeria venture

CAIRO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Ghabbour Auto, Egypt's largest publicly traded car assembly and retail company, said it would pay $2.5 million for a majority stake in a company that will distribute semi trailers in Algeria.

Ghabbour will take a 51 percent stake in the company, called GB-Allab Remourque. Ghabbour has said it was looking for acquisitions as the global financial crisis lowers prices. The Algerian company, a joint venture with Algeria's Sentrax, could sell 600 semi trailers in its first year of operations to take a 10 percent share of the market, Ghabbour said.

"We estimate the overall effect of the new sales to add 2 percent to GB Auto's top line," said Menatalla Sadek, analyst at Beltone Financial.