Thursday 18 February 2010
Moroccan partner says Kuwaiti Zain keeping stake
Posted on 13:20 by google
CASABLANCA (Reuters) - Kuwaiti telecom Zain, which is in exclusive talks with India's Bharti Airtel to sell its African assets, will keep its stake in Morocco's telecoms venture Wana, the head of the Moroccan company said on Thursday.
"Zain maintains its telecom asset in Morocco," Wana's Managing Director Frederic Debord told reporters.
Zain bought its 31 percent stake in Wana, the telecoms arm of Morocco's largest conglomerate ONA, for $324 million last March.
The purchase was made less than a month after Wana won the concession to operate the North African country's third wireless phone network -- part of a government drive to liberalise the telecoms sector and cut prices.
Debord said Wana will launch its mobile phone operation next Tuesday under the trade name Inwi.
Wana, which currently offers limited-range mobile, fixed-line and Internet services, will join Maroc Telecom and Meditel, which operate the two existing mobile networks in the kingdom of more than 30 million people.
Maroc Telecom is 54 percent held by Vivendi, Europe's largest entertainment group, while Meditel is a joint venture between privately-owned FinanceCom group and Morocco's biggest state fund CDG.
"Inwi's mobile network capacity is ready to receive two million clients from the first day of the beginning of our operation," Debord said.
He added that he saw a huge potential growth in the mobile phone market in Morocco where more than 80 percent of the population own a mobile phone.
"We have to go fast to win more clients," said Debord adding his company aims to undercut its competitors.
(Reporting by Lamine Ghanmi, editing by John Stonestreet)
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