Vodafone is preparing for an initial public offering of its Qatari subsidiary, with a sale of about 20 per cent of the shares expected before the end of the year.
In December, a consortium led by the UK-based operator won a licence to break the mobile phone monopoly in Qatar, one of the world's richest nations, seeing off competition from Verizon Communications of the US and Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates.
The company declined to estimate what the Qatari business might be worth when floated.
However, in the most recent IPO of a mobile operator in the region, Zain, the third operator in Saudi Arabia, Qatar's much larger neighbour, recently sold 50 per cent of its shares for $1.8bn, in a heavily oversubscribed IPO.
Zain Saudi Arabia's shares made their debut on the open market at more than twice the initial offer price, valuing the company at close to $8bn. However, any comparisons with Vodafone's Qatari business should be tempered by Saudi's much larger population - 27m compared with less than 1m in Qatar.
Qatar is the last Arab country to open its telecommunications sector to competition and is seen as an important Middle Eastern asset by Vodafone, which aims to derive a third of its adjusted earnings from emerging markets by 2012. The shift of focus is designed to help offset falling sales in saturated European markets.
Although Qatar's mobile penetration is already more than 100 per cent, the country is expected to double its population in the next 15 years.
Source:http://www.ft.com
