India’s Vavasi Group and Malaysia’s Al Bukhary Group have together appointed a merchant banker for conducting due diligence and fixing a valuation of Kuwait’s Zain Telecom. The two, along with BSNL and MTNL, the state-run telecom majors, have shown interest in jointly buying a 46 per cent stake in Zain.
Sources close to Vavasi told Business Standard the group has informed both PSUs about the advisor. However, BSNL and MTNL would be conducting their own due diligence and valuation.
After the two independent studies, the consortium would decide the price it would like to offer.
Last month, Kharafi, a major shareholder in Zain, had said it would sell its 20 percent stake and an additional 26 percent from other stakeholders, to a consortium led by Vavasi and Malaysian billionaire Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary, along with BSNL and MTNL. The deal was estimated to be around $13.7 billion.
The consortium would float a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which half the equity will be held by four partners — Vavasi, two private equity funds and Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary. The rest of the equity will be held by a telecom company. The Vavasi group will initially pick up 10 per cent in the SPV and may increase it later.
Zain Telecom has over 69 million customers and operations in 24 countries spreading across West Asia and Africa, with a market capitalisation of $19.5 billion.