Bharti going after Zain with a $10.7 bln offer

Bharti is eyeing the african market all over again, with an offer of $10.7 billion for Zain’s african operations.

With acquisition talks abuzz, Zain’s share price on the Kuwait Stock Exchange has risen by more than a fifth in about a week, raising it’s value to $16.2 billion.

Zain – Recent Developments

- Earlier in Feb, Zain CEO Al-Barrak handed his resignation to the Chairman of the board. The New Zain CEO is ex-minister Nabil Bin Salama.

- In August 2009, Reliance Communications started talks to buy Zain’s African operations.

- Etisalat was also a suitor for a 51% stake in Zain at the “right price”.

- Zain operates in 23 countries. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is Zain’s biggest shareholder with a 24.6% stake and the Kharafi Group is the  second largest shareholder with 13.7%.

-In 2008,  Zain reported revenues of 2 billion dinars (USD 6.96 billion) and net profit of 322 million dinars. Current liabilities stood at 1.5 billion dinars at the end of March 2009.

- In May 2009, Zain announced a rare cut of 2,000 jobs of its 15,500 workforce, signalling that the expansion was probably being re-visited. Zain has spent in excess of USD 12 billion in Africa since 2005.

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