Zain's board analyses Q3, addresses sales deal

13/10/2010 00:00 AST

Zain's board is to hold a meeting today, Wednesday Oct. 13, 2010, to discuss the financial statements that ended Sept. 30, 2010 in light of positive indices that will support the performance of the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange (KSE). Sources mentioned that the meeting will discuss the financial statements of the third quarter (Q3) as a main topic and will also deliberate a possible deal of selling a share of 46 percent of Zain's stocks to the United Arab Emirates's (UAE) Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, Etisalat.

Sources went on to say that the expected discussion concerning Zain's deal is not related to conducting the due diligence examination, and ruled out the possibility of conducting the technical examination.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Operations Barrak Al-Sabeeh stressed that the executive management did not receive any official letters from Etisalat regarding the possible deal.

Moreover, sources mentioned that the examination procedures do not require a long time because the company's current status is very clear after Zain Africa was sold. They added that Zain and its subsidiaries are at a financially clear state, and that Zain has three auditing authorities, which are the external auditors, the internal auditors, and the auditing committee. This means that the financial data is thoroughly audited within a short time period.

In other news, affected by continuous positive news that Zain's deal will be finalized soon after being redirected into the right track, KSE has regained its momentum Tuesday to close at an increase of 46 points, and the weight index has closed at an increase of 3.9 points as a result for price increase witnessed by some operational and leading shares at different sectors.

The technical indices of all sectors have increased except the volume of traded amount of cash which decreased to reach 51.4 million Kuwaiti dinars by trading 427 million shares, experts believe that such a decrease in cash volume is due to focused buying that targeted low-priced shares and other shares that belong to popular groups, the price index has closed at the level of 7054 points.

The banking sector has witnessed a lively action on selective buying that focused on Kuwait Finance House (KFH) shares resulting in increasing its price by 40 Kuwaiti fils. Also, the shares of the Gulf Bank of Kuwait have witnessed technical buying aiming to reach investment future targets resulting in increasing its price by 20 fils.

The shares of Kuwait National Bank (NBK) and Boubyan Bank have witnessed buying action after both the banks announced record profits for the third quarter (Q3). A reliable source said that buying action targeting most of banking sector's shares has spread psychological comforting feelings amongst traders; smart buying trades are expected to continue until the issue of financing governmental projects is clear.

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Al Watan