Kuwait's biggest mobile-phone operator, Mobile Telecommunications Co or ZAIN has said that the compltion of the IPO of its Iraqi unit may not be completed until December of 2013.
According to a statement, ""The formation of the joint stock exchange company is taking longer than expected due to local governmental procedures. There was never a deadline, it's only expectations. We hope that it will be completed by the second half of this year, but it will depend on how long it will take for the procedures to be concluded."
The plan was to list 25% of the shares in the Iraqi Stock Exchange by the end of the second quarter of 2013. The IPO sale would then be followed by the US$1.3 billion IPO by Asiacell Communications PJSC. Asiacell's majority shareholder is Qatar Telecom QSC.
Zain also advised that the regulatory procedures for the IPO in Iraq would also be completed by the middle of the current year. According to Asaad Ahmed al-Banwan,"We are now taking the legal procedures and we think by the end of the year we will finish the public offering."
Join the Conversation