Tuesday, Jan 08, 2008
DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Zain Saudi Arabia, a unit of Kuwait's Zain Group, will sell shares worth 7 billion riyals ($1.86 billion) in February, making it the third telecom operator to offer shares to the public in Saudi Arabia.
Zain Saudi Arabia is offering a 50% stake in the IPO, which will run from Feb. 9 to 18, the company said in a statement on the Saudi bourse website Tuesday. The shares are priced at SAR10 each.
Zain's share sale plan follows Al Inmaa Bank, a newly formed Saudi lender, saying Tuesday that it will launch a SAR10.5 billion IPO in April, making it the second-biggest public offering in the Arab Gulf region after DP World's IPO.
A consortium led by Kuwait's Zain Group in March 2007 offered $6.1 billion for the third mobile license in the kingdom. Zain will compete with Saudi Telecom Co. and Etihad Etisalat, the current mobile operators in the kingdom. Shares of STC and Etihad Etisalat are listed on the Saudi stock market.
The Saudi Zain on Monday signed a $935-million turnkey deal with Nokia Siemens Networks to rollout a second and third generation mobile network in the kingdom.
-By Shaji Mathew, Dow Jones Newswires, +9714 364 4968 Shaji.Mathew@dowjones.com
Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-01-08 1351GMT
