Turkish group seeks stake in Kuwait's Zain

The Dubai-based television said it obtained a copy of the agreement between the giant Turkish group and Sheikh Khalifa Ali al-Khalifa al-Sabah, a board member of Zain and staunch opponent of selling a stake in the firm to Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates.
CNBC Arabia said that the Turkish bid offers to finalise the purchase within 60 days from December 29, when the preliminary agreement was signed between Cukurova and Sheikh Khalifa.
Cukurova offered a price of 1.72 Kuwaiti dinars ($6.1) per share, slightly more than the 1.7 dinars a share offered by Etisalat.
Sheikh Khalifa is linked to Kuwait's Al-Fawares Holding which last month filed a lawsuit against plans by Khorafi Group, the biggest private shareholder in Zain, to sell a majority stake to Etisalat.
Al-Fawares owns about a 4.5 percent stake in Zain.
The lawsuit wanted the court to order Zain to halt opening its books for due diligence to Etisalat, but the court dismissed the case. Al-Fawares said it has challenged the ruling to the appeals court which will meet in February.
The fate of Etisalat's bid to purchase a controlling stake in Zain for around 12 billion dollars, meanwhile, appears to be increasingly in doubt as the deadline to sign definitive agreements is approaching.
Etisalat said in November that the purchase proposal would terminate unless the parties entered into definitive transaction documents by 15 January, 2011.
The representative of Khorafi Group, National Investment Co., said in a statement to Kuwait Stock Exchange on Wednesday that it did not receive anything from its client to indicate that the deadline has been extended.
The Khorafi Group directly owns 12.7 percent of Zain, but its share is believed to amount to more than 20 percent if indirect stakes are taken into account.
The Kuwaiti group had earlier said it started collecting the needed shares from other holders to complete the deal.
Last year, Zain sold its operations in 15 African countries to Indian telecoms giant Bharti Airtel for $10.7 billion at a profit of more than $3 billion.
Kuwait's government holds a 24.6 percent stake in Zain. The other two Kuwaiti mobile companies, Wataniya and Viva, are run by Qatar's Qtel and Saudi STC.