Kuwait’s largest mobile-phone operator, said its Iraqi unit may not complete an initial public offering until the end of 2013.
“The formation of the joint stock exchange company is taking longer than expected due to local governmental procedures,” the Kuwaiti company, known as Zain, said in a statement today. “There was never a deadline, it’s only expectations. We hope that it will be completed by the second half of this year, but it will depend on how long it will take for the procedures to be concluded.”
Zain said in February that the division planned to list 25 percent of its shares on the Iraq Stock Exchange by the end of the first half. The stock sale would follow a $1.3 billion IPO by Asiacell Communications PJSC, majority-owned by Qatar Telecom QSC (QTEL), which started trading in Baghdad in February.
Regulatory procedures for the Iraqi IPO should be completed by mid-2013, Zain said today.