| Kippreport.com

RINGING UP AN INTEREST: Iraq to launch major telecom IPO

January 6, 2013 8:06 by Reuters

FIRST OF SERIES

 

Asiacell, in which Qatar Telecom owns 54 percent, will sell 67.503 billion shares at a price of at least 22 Iraqi dinars ($0.02) per share in the IPO, which starts on Jan. 3, the company said in a statement last week.

 

It is expected to be the first of three big telecommunications IPOs in Iraq; Asiacell and its two domestic rivals, Zain Iraq, a subsidiary of Kuwait’s Zain , and France Telecom affiliate Korek must raise funds through IPOs as a condition of receiving their $1.25 billion operating licences from the government.

 

All three companies missed an earlier deadline of August 2011 to do so, arguing the stock market was not sufficiently prepared at the time, and have been fined for the delay.

 

The IPO requirement is a way for authorities to try to encourage private ownership in an economy still dominated by state-owned companies, and to spread more of the wealth created by Iraq’s recovery around the population.

 

Taha Abdulsalam, chief executive of the Iraq Stock Exchange, told Reuters that the listing of Asiacell’s shares on Feb. 3 would be a boon to the market by adding the telecommunications sector to investors’ options.

 

Currently the market, where the main equity index fell about 8 percent in 2012, has about 85 listed firms with capitalisation heavily focused on the banking sector, though there are also stocks in industry, insurance, hotels and agriculture.

 

Abdulsalam predicted the market’s trading volume, which was around $3 million per day this year, would rise about 10 percent because of the listing.

 

In the long term, telecommunications could be a great bet in Iraq; the International Monetary Fund predicts Iraq’s economy will grow more than 10 percent this year and at least 9 percent annually over the next five years, aided by rising oil output. That should boost demand for higher-end data services.

 

Asicaell, which claims to have a 43 percent share of revenues in the mobile phone market and 9.9 million subscribers, posted net income of 474 billion dinars in the first nine months of last year, against 505 billion dinars in all of 2011, according to a company statement.

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