Zain Saudi’s Issue Oversubscribed

Zain Saudi’s $1.69 billion rights issue was over-subscribed by 105.4 per cent, the issue’s lead manager Saudi Fransi Capital said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

The Kingdom’s third telecom operator started a rights issue on July 10 which closed eight days later. The issuing price was set at SAR10, without a premium, it said.

“The rights issue was subscribed by more than 632 million shares with the receiving banks… This amounts to SAR6.34 billion, a coverage of 105.4 per cent of the rights issue shares,” the firm said in the statement.

Prior to the rights issue, Zain Saudi also cut its capital earlier this month to SAR4.8 billion from SAR14 billion to alleviate accumulated losses, which topped SAR10 billion at the end of March.

“With the finalisation of the rights issue, the capital restructuring of Zain Saudi – which was set to improve the financial situation of the company – is complete,” the statement said.