Etisalat is likely to acquire more stakes in PTCL, reported today ‘The News’, citing some Sharjah based newspaper Al-Khaleej.
By the way, this Al-Khaleej newspaper is different from famous Khaleej Times; in fact Al-Khaleej is sharjah based Arabic newspaper.
If you search Al-Khaleej on Google, said newspaper appears only after 2nd page. We used a translator to find out any news about this Etisalat official claiming to acquire more shares in PTCL, but we couldn’t find any relevant news on the topic.
You can check all news items published in last one month by clicking this link: http://www.alkhaleej.ae/services/rss.aspx
Above all, Etisalat is in no position to express its wish for buying more shares in PTCL, while they have taken 5 years and are yet to pay earlier 2.6 billion for 26 percent shares of PTCL. In fact they are yet to resolve dispute and are holding USD 800 million.
Moreover, Chairman Etisalat has expresses his concerns over PTCL’s ARPU in the past, there are little chances that company will invest more funds in the company. Even if they want to, Government of Pakistan is not going to accept the offer – given the scenario that Privatization commission, Etisalat, standing committee on Telecom and IT are not on same page, rather they are in massive conflict.
Update:
There just appeared a story in The National today, which opines that Pakistani politicians are deliberately scaring investors for coming into Pakistan by not settling the dispute with Etisalat. It is amazing that investors are holding millions of dollars while media is still alleging Pakistan government for the situation.
It looks “The News” story is to water the mouths, while at the same time “The National” is threatening the government if they want more investments.