And so it ends

And so it ends

Etisalat walks away from its $12 billion bid to buy a majority stake in Kuwaiti telco Zain, but how will this affect it and the region? Kipp explores.

March 20, 2011 4:03 by Eva Fernandes

Kipp remembers fondly of the first story we wrote about speculations of Etisalat’s potential bid to buy a majority stake in Etisalat. That was six months ago in September. Since then the deal has plagued business paper headlines far too regularly for Kipp’s liking.

As Etisalat set a date to complete its due diligence for the first time on January 15, missed its deadline, set up another deadline and missed it again due to what it claimed was a lack of information and time, Kipp wrote about it.

As the naysayers speculated it was all over for the take-over provoking Etisalat to reiterate its interest in the bid, Kipp covered it. We wrote about it so many times, we even had to resort to a shirtless-Jacob-from-Twilight analogy to make the story still interesting for our readers but, more importantly, for ourselves.

Which is why after six months of a build-up worthy of a Coppola film, Kipp is severely disappointed in the rather unceremonious way in which Etisalat walked away from the Zain deal.

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Tags: Etisalat, gcc, Middle East, telecommunications, telecoms, telecos, UAE, Zain