Batelco aborts planned Umniah sale

AMMAN — Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) has reconsidered its plan to sell Umniah after it announced earlier that it was considering a sale of the company.

“Having explored received interest, the Batelco board of directors has decided that it is in the best interests of stakeholders to retain its full ownership of Umniah and not to progress any further with the sale process,” Ahmad Hussein Al Janahi, secretary of the board and general manager of corporate affairs at Batelco, said in a statement to the Bahrain stock market this week.

In January, Batelco said it had decided to launch a private sale process for Umniah, one of Jordan’s three mobile operators.

Batelco noted that non-binding offers from potential interested parties were received in January.

It added: “Over the coming period, together with our advisers, we will evaluate the offers received and update the market in due course.”

Last year, several media outlets reported that Batelco had reached out to potential buyers including Emirates Telecommunications Group and Qatar’s Ooredoo QSC about a sale of its Jordanian mobile operator.

The number of Umniah subscribers reached 3.8 million at the end of the second half of 2015, according to the latest available figures.