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Audi and BankMed empires expand Bank Audi has acquired a majority stake in Arabeya Online (AOLb), Egypt’s first online trading platform. In the agreement, Audi will own a 90 percent stake in the online brokerage, bought from Naeem Holding, leaving founder and chief executive officer Hesham Tawfiq, who owned 80 percent of the company, at his post. Tawfiq’s stake will decease to 10 percent when the deal is finalized. The value of the sale has not been released, but according to Egyptian newspaper Al-Borsa, AOLb has $4.3 million in operating capital. The paper also said in June that Tawfiq had received offers from about eight regional financial institutions. AOLb is Egypt’s ninth biggest brokerage, posting $3.2 billion in trading in 2009, and offers conditional orders, mobile trading and margin trading. Bank Audi also announced this month that Audi Capital Syria has begun operations after receiving approval from the country’s Central