Bahraini incumbent Batelco may be interested in acquiring a stake in Zain Saudi Arabia, if the opportunity arises, Batelco’s CEO said at a conference today.
“We will look at it. It has got to make sense for us financially,” Peter Kaliaropoulos told…
Bahraini incumbent Batelco may be interested in acquiring a stake in Zain Saudi Arabia, if the opportunity arises, Batelco’s CEO said at a conference today.
“We will look at it. It has got to make sense for us financially,” Peter Kaliaropoulos told journalists at a telecoms conference in Dubai. “We already operate in Saudi Arabia [via WiMax service Etihad Atheeb, which controls around 24% of the wireless broadband market] so this market is attractive to us,” he added.
Assuming that Etisalat’s bid for 46% of Zain is accepted, the Saudi regulator may force the two companies to sell down their combined local holdings, which account for 55% of the market, breaching the 49% FDI limit.
A source at National Bank of Kuwait confirmed a Bloomberg report saying it had the mandate to sell Zain’s 25% stake in Zain Saudi Arabia. Batelco’s Kaliaropoulos said that the company has the ability to raise up to US$1.5bn debt for any stake purchase as well as “partners who will inject equity”.
“The Batelco group today has no debt on its balance sheet. We are going through a rating right now. This will help us go to the bond market to raise debt,” he said.
A spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied QTel’s reported interest in bidding for Zain’s Saudi Arabian assets, whilst South Africa’s MTN might reportedly also throw its hat into the ring – although this would depart from its management’s recent declaration that M&A was now off the menu.
Meanwhile, Amer al-Rawas, CEO of Omantel, told Bloomberg: “We are not excluding Zain Saudi Arabia as an option, but we are not considering it at this stage.”
