Warid’s quest for acquisition has been around in Pakistan’s Telecom sector for a while. TechJuice got in touch with a source from Mobilink who has confirmed that Mobilink has not yet acquired Warid but both of the organizations are in talks and it is highly likely that Mobilink will acquire Warid in a few weeks time. As for the official announcement, our source maintained that if things go as expected, we can expect the official announcement in the month of September.
Back in June 2013, Warid Telecom was put up for sale by its parent company Abu Dhabi Group. Since then many companies had expressed their interest in acquiring Warid – Etisalat Group, China Mobile being some of them. In October 2013, PTCL announced that it is submitting a non-binding offer to acquire Warid Telecom. However, PTCL did not go through with it and nor did any of the other firms.
In March this year it was announced, Warid’s sale had been pushed forth because CMO’s were pushing themselves away from the company since it had been discovered that Warid had considerable amount of loans and outstanding payments. Ufone and Zong started negotiations with Warid regarding its heavy outstanding payments and loans and even offered $1 billion each.
See also: Mobilink, Ufone and Warid have lost market share to Telenor and ZONG – Telecom Industry 2015 Update
Warid Telecom was launched back in May 2005 and with 9 million subscribers it is the smallest CMO of Pakistan. They claim to have the largest post-paid customer base in the industry and the largest number of 4G LTE subscribers in 12 cities. Warid has also invested $100 million for 2G and LTE upgradation.
Back in 2013, Abu Dhabi Group stated the potential acquisition value around $1 billion. But lately Warid’s performance has been less than impressive, with a very small customer base. This may have been the very reason why Warid was up for sale in the first place.
This is a developing story…
Edited by: Fatima Rizwan – Source: Phone World
