Landmark US$ 2.5 Bn Murabaha financing facility for Zain Saudi Arabia

On 08.12.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news:  Zain Saudi Arabia (“Zain KSA”) held the closing for a US$ 2.5 billion Murabaha financing facility. The funds will be used to repay its existing Murabaha, facilitating the mobile telecom operation’s ongoing network expansion and future growth. The term of the facility is two years with options of extending for a further twelve months.

Al Rajhi Capital, Banque Saudi Fransi  and Calyon acted as Financial Advisors, with a total of eight regional and international financial institutions participating in what is one of the largest Islamic financings this year. Al Rajhi Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi and Calyon  acted as Initial Mandated Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners, while National Bank of Kuwait  and Arab National Bank acting as Senior Mandated Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners. Saudi British Bank (SABB) acted as the Senior Mandated Lead Arranger with Gulf Bank and Standard Bank acting as Mandated Lead Arrangers.

“This is an enormous vote of confidence by the International financial community in Zain KSA’s performance to date and its future expansion plans in the region’s largest economy,” said Dr Saad Al Barrak, CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia and Zain Group. “The growth and success of this mobile operation is critical to Zain Group’s 2011 ambition of being a top ten global mobile telecommunications company. The Murabaha facility, which comes at a vital stage of Zain KSA ’s business growth cycle, will play an important role in achieving this goal.”

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Zain Saudi Arabia nears the closing of $2.5Bn loan deal

On 07.28.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zain Saudi Arabia, the new entrant in the country, is about to close a deal for $2.5 billion loan, a spokesman for its parent company Zain reportedly unveiled. “This is a two-year murabaha (Islamic financing),” the spokesman said. Al-Rajhi Bank 1120.SE and Banque Saudi Fransi are leading the refinancing facility, Zain said.
The facility has been oversubscribed since its launch in April and priced at 425 basis points over LIBOR, Zain said. This will receive a 6 months of extension at the behest of the borrower and will be used to fund the expansion of Zain Saudi Arabia’s network.
The murabaha will replace a previous one worth 9.4 billion riyals ($2.51 billion) which is to mature on Aug. 12, he said.
Zain SA has stated that it has agreed with the banks to postpone from July 27 to Aug. 12 the maturity of the previous murabaha.

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Zain successfully trials HSPA+ in a live 3G network (Saudi Arabia)

On 05.27.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zain Saudi Arabia can now enter the mobile broadband business, offering its subscribers a superior end user experience at a minimal cost outlay. Paving the way for an all-IP flat architecture network of the future, the operator has realized significantly improved data throughput speeds in a recently concluded trial. Nokia Siemens Networks, the operator’s turnkey network supplier implemented an Internet-HSPA (I-HSPA) software upgrade within Zain’s existing radio access network to deliver the benefits.

“We want to be the first to unleash the true potential of the Internet on users’ handsets,” said Eng.Ismail Fekri,COO, Zain Saudi Arabia. “However, we realized early that if we went head long into it, we could run into problems of heavy data usage and insufficient network resources. That is why we decided to test the solution first – in a live network environment and not a lab set-up. We now have full faith in the efficacy of the Internet-HSPA solution presented by Nokia Siemens Networks and are looking forward to a quick commercial deployment.”

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Zain Kenya issues 141 pink slips

On 03.31.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zain Kenya has axed 141 employees as the firm realigns its business model across all operations in Africa with a view to improving its delivery of services to its customers.

Zain Africa CEO Chris Gabriel reportedly said that the affected employees are from sales, finance, technical, IT and customer service departments. The incumbent will implement a Modular Business Model that will enable all Zain operations to focus on the key customer-facing activities.

Gabriel said the implementation of the Modular Business Model is part of Zain’s drive to become a top 10 global mobile operator by 2011 with 110 million subscribers and an EBITDA of USD 6 billion.

The model gave positive result when implemented in Saudi Arabia by Zain after it launched its operations in 2008.

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Zain Saudi Arabia reports a net loss of $608Mn in 2008

On 02.24.09, In Mobile, By Editor

Zain Saudi Arabia anticipates its first positive Ebitda in 2010 after the kingdom’s third mobile operator reached a 7% market share in first four months of its operation, one of the top official revealed. The firm reported a net loss of 2.28 billion riyals ($608 million) in 2008. ‘In addition to 2 million active customers (by end December), the operating profit itself (in 2008), or the difference between costs of sales and revenues was positive,’ Chief Executive Marwan al-Ahmadi said.
‘We think these are positive results,’ he said. ‘We are still committed to achieving a positive Ebitda in 2010.’
The 2 million active users reached between August and the end of 2008 represented a 7% market share, he added.
‘We are talking about active subscribers, not users who do not generate revenues for the company. Anyone who does not recharge the account for 90 days is not considered,’ he said. Zain Saudi Arabia is in tough competition with Saudi Telecom and Mobily in which Emirates Telecommunications is the largest shareholder.

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