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Egypt's Beltone Financial has signed a deal to complete its planned merger with Pioneers Holding and expects to complete the deal by the end of May, Beltone said on Sunday. A Beltone spokesman said the new firm will be called Beltone Holding with Beltone's chief executive, Aladdin Saba, to be its managing director and the final agreement was concluded last week. When first announced in November the all-share merger, which is structured as a takeover by Pioneers of Beltone, valued Beltone at LE 706 million ($129 million) but is now worth just under LE 500 million, according to the Pioneers share price on Sunday. Under the deal Pioneers will issue 100 million new shares for Beltone shares which will give Beltone's owners a stake of about 17 percent in the merged firm.

The combined company's board will include Pioneers executives Walid Zaki and Taha Al-Telbani, Beltone's Saba and Aly El-Tahry and three members appointed by both parties. Pioneers' shares jumped sharply after the news, and were trading 3.6 percent higher at LE 4.92 by 1129 GMT on Sunday. Ashraf Akhnoukh, a trader with CIBC brokerage, said retail investors bought on the news, pushing volumes to the daily average by two hours into the session. "This is normal procedure. They are still awaiting the due diligence on both companies," Akhnoukh said. "This does not mean the deal is done. The final verdict is due in May, this is when Pioneers should be up." Beltone specializes in investment banking, while Pioneers has a wide retail distribution network with smaller research and investment banking operations. The merger was initially expected to complete within six to eight weeks after the November announcement.