Morocco’s royal family intends to float Wana, the kingdom’s third-largest mobile phone operator, as part of a restructuring of the two holding companies that jointly own 84.5% of the business.
The royals want to transform the conglomerates ONA and SNI…
Morocco’s royal family intends to float Wana, the kingdom’s third-largest mobile phone operator, as part of a restructuring of the two holding companies that jointly own 84.5% of the business.
The royals want to transform the conglomerates ONA and SNI into active shareholders with all of their underlying businesses listed on the Bourse de Casablanca.
ONA and SNI will only list Wana once the business has become more established which is likely to be some years down the line. Wana won its mobile phone licence last year and had only 604,000 customers or 2.4% of the market at the end of December.
By contrast, its two competitors Maroc Telecom and Méditel had 15.3 million and 9.4 million customers at the end of last year.
The royal family will merge ONA and SNI into a single entity, which has yet to be named.
According to Hassan Bouhemou, the chief executive of SNI who will hold the same post at the merged entity, “The old business model has taken its last breath. The new entity will be a professional shareholder.”
ONA and SNI have yet to set a timetable for Wana’s flotation. They also failed to say what would happen to the 15.5% stake of Wana that is owned by Kuwaiti telco Zain.
When contacted by TelecomFinance, a Zain spokesman said he was unaware of the changes planned by the majority shareholders.