Telco Zain Bahrain Must Complete Share Sale By Year-End – Regulator

Zain’s Bahraini unit must complete an initial public offering by December-end to comply with its licence terms, the Kingdom’s telecom regulator has said.

Zain Bahrain has been instructed to sell 15 per cent of its shares in the IPO and list on Bahrain’s bourse, a spokesman for the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in an emailed response to questions from Reuters.

The company last week announced it had received approval to launch a long-awaited IPO, although a Bahrain newspaper earlier said Zain Bahrain had been ordered by the government to float its shares.

Bahrain’s second mobile licence was awarded to Kuwait’s Zain in 2003 – ending Bahrain Telecommunications Co’s (Batelco) monopoly – and the unit had planned to launch an IPO in 2008, only for the share sale to be abandoned.