The offloading of 46 % stake by the Kharafi Family who own majority stake in Kuwait’s Zain turned out to throw many surprises as in contrast to expectations that the stake maybe acquired by big players including India’s Reliance Communications, the stake was in fact acquired by Vavasi Group as part of a consortium.

The consortium will pay 2 dinars a share valuing Zain at $ 13.7 billion.

The deal involves 46 % of freely traded shares and entitled management control. The consortium is expected to have effectively 51 % of the total issued shares with the treasury holding 9.96 %. Malaysian billionaire Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary is also part of the consortium.

Zain has operations in over 24 countries including in Africa.

Additionally the consortium is likely to approach MTNL and BSNL for acquiring stake in Zain through the consortium and chances of MTNL joining are very high.

Synopsis: Setback for Reliance Communications as the company was also in talks to acquire this stake and gain entry into some of the African countries.