MARCH: The pursuit of Zain-ness

Kipp turned creative as we covered six months of Etisalat unsuccessfully pursuing a $ 12billion stake in Kuwaiti teleco Zain evoking even an unlikely metaphor of the Twilight love triangle.

December 20, 2011 2:45 by Eva Fernandes

For over six months Etisalat had been pursuing buying a $12 billion stake in Kuwaiti teleco Zain. But on March 19^th, the teleco released a statement saying that it had ended talks with Zain on account of the results of its due diligence process, a lack of unanimity among Zain board members and political unrest in the region. The pursuit was long drawn out and as The National called it once “a saga filled with lawsuits, shareholder disputes and new laws covering takeovers of Kuwaiti companies.” Here at Kipp, we got tired of reporting of the umpteenth time due diligence was missed or ownership regulations were altered, that we were pushed to some, ahem, rather creative reporting. Here is our favourite article that came out of the coverage:

The Zain Saga: Oscar-worthy?

February 24, 2011

The Twilight Saga has been a huge literary and cinematic success; unfortunately, the same will probably not be said of the Zain Saga.

Samuel Potter

If the Zain saga is ever committed to film, Kipp likes to think we would be played by that guy who spends almost the entire length of the Twilight films with his shirt off. (We were going to criticize him for that though; frankly, any guy with abs like that would bowl around with his shirt off too.) Anyway, our character could valiantly report on the ups and downs of the deal despite the constant threat of some danger or other, all the while maintaining a kind of distant aloofness from that girl-next-door type who works downstairs.

Our tortured romance would play out against the backdrop of Etisalat and Zain’s ongoing tussle. Obviously, the film would have to make a few adjustments for popularity’s sake. Etisalat could be a gang of day walking-vampires, intent on conquering the world, and Zain could be a rival gang of werewolves. Or vice versa, it doesn’t really matter – everyone loves vampires and werewolves just now. Chuck in a boy wizard and a mental ballerina and we’re golden.

Heaven knows, we’d have to do something to keep people’s attention, because the current will-they-won’t-they plotline is enough to put Kipp to sleep, and we’ve had a can of Red Bull. We’ll give you a quick update here, so that any budding screenwriters can get to work on the screenplay post haste:

This week it has been reported that Sheikh Khalifa Ali Al Sabah believes the Etisalat deal is now dead and buried, presumably courtesy of a wooden stake through its heart. Sheikh Khalifa, who has been one of the most vociferous opponents to the deal, says that the failure to sell Zain Saudi is that stake, the rejection last week of all three offers for the company evidently the deadly application to Etisalat’s chest (because, as you wll know, Zain Saudi must be sold to facilitate the deal as Etisalat already operates in Saudi Arabia with Mobily).