Qatar Telecom (Qtel) plans to acquire a majority shareholding in Iraq’s Asiacell before reportedly offering shares in the mobile operator to the public.
Qtel chairman Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani told media at a company event in Doha it was in…
Qatar Telecom (Qtel) plans to acquire a majority shareholding in Iraq’s Asiacell before reportedly offering shares in the mobile operator to the public.
Qtel chairman Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani told media at a company event in Doha it was in talks to buy London-based private equity partner MerchantBridge’s 19% stake in Asiacell, Bloomberg reported. Qtel – Qatar’s largest company by revenue – currently owns a 30% stake in the Iraqi mobile network operator.
Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying Qtel is taking advice from Morgan Stanley on the matter, while MerchantBridge is consulting Credit Suisse.
In 2007, Asiacell paid US$1.25bn for a 15-year mobile licence with terms stipulating it must launch an initial public offering (IPO) to sell off 25% of its shares by November 2011. However, Asiacell and the two other locally-licensed mobile operators (Zain’s Iraqi unit and Korek Telecom) all missed the deadline, claiming the Iraq Stock Exchange wasn’t ready to handle the listings.
Reuters stated the Iraqi bourse has a market capitalisation of just $US4bn with average daily trading of less than US$2m.
Asiacell reportedly appointed HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Iraqi brokerage firm Rabee Securities to manage its IPO in October and, the following month, consulted BNY Mellon on attracting international buyers.
Asiacell is Iraq’s second largest mobile operator with 8.7m subscribers as of September 2011.
