Zain Denies Reports of Syrian Aquisition

Kuwait's Zain (formerly MTC) has denied media reports that the company is in advanced talks to acquire a majority stake in the Syria based mobile network, SyriaTel. The Kuwait based Arabic language newspaper, Al-Qabas, citing unnamed sources said that the company was close to securing a 51% stake in the company. It gave no other details.

"Zain always pursues acquisitions of companies in several places and has not reached advanced talks on any of them," Zain said in a statement to the Kuwaiti stock exchange.

Turkcell has also been named recently as a possible suitor for a controlling stake in SyriaTel.

Only last week, Zain had to deny reports that Vodafone was close to acquiring a large stake in the firm.

Rami Makhlouf is the the majority owner of Syriatel and is cousin of the president. The operator is estimated to have had 2.8 million subscribers at the end of September, according to figures from the Mobile World. The equates to a market share of 49.5% - with the remainder held by SpaceTel Syria

On the web: Mobile World - Al-Qabas

Posted to the site on 22nd January 2008