Major Shareholder Proposes to Acquire 78.4% of Worldcall Telecom

WorldCall Services (Private) Limited approached WorldCall Telecom through public intention offer of buying a further 185 million of shares (21.6%) at the value of Rs 2.69 per share which translates into Rs 500 million.

The offer is being made to various minority shareholders of WorldCall Telecom who will be given a week period from May 01 to 07 for acceptance of the offer made public by the acquirer.

This announced future deal is a separate exercise of sale-purchase of shares from the previous one which was signed last year by the same company according to details revealed in stock filing.

Earlier in October 2016, WorldCall Services entered into a share purchase agreement with Oman Telecommunications Company (S.A.O.G.), the major shareholder of WorldCall Telecom, for the purchase of 488 million ordinary shares (56.80%) at a price of Rupees 0.00000020 per ordinary share.

Hence, WorldCall Services intended to increase its shareholding from 56.80 percent to 78.4 percent.

Oman Telecommunication owns majority shareholding of 56.80 percent in WorldCall Telecom. It is followed by public and private sector companies with 11.9% shareholding and commercial banks and DFIs with 5.59 percent shares. 25 percent shares are owned by general public through stock exchange.

Another company, Ferret Consulting also entered into an agreement in October 2016 with Oman Telecommunications Company for the purchase of 297,500 Convertible Preference Shares (85%) of WorldCall Telecom Limited at a price of USD 0.00000336 per convertible preference share.

It is worth mentioning here that WorldCall Services (Pvt) Limited and Ferret Consulting (FZC), the two acquirers are associated companies based on crossed directorship.

WorldCall Services through its deal manager expressed his plans of acquiring shares to bring technical strength, experience and efficiencies to WorldCall Telecom.

With the purchase of majority shares of the telecom company, it is expected that the WorldCall Telecom may become more financially viable in comparison to its current status. It is also expected that the new owners will have better managerial planning. Consequently, the WorldCall Services may be able to pass on parts of the expected benefits to the other stakeholders such as the Government, employees, general body of consumers and the society at large.

WorldCall Telecom will continue as a listed company after its acquisition but the shareholders of the company will change.

WorldCall Services and Ferret Consulting Acquirers claim of having an in depth knowledge of the business of telecom business with a strong technical team to develop new products and ambitious marketing people to explore new market.

These companies claim to be confident that they will be able to grow the WorldCall business and operate the company more efficiently and profitably.

The management of WorldCall and its owner Oman Tel signed multiple deals with Dunya Group and PTCL in the past to sell out shares with major stakes to interested companies but their negotiations with the two parties didn’t conclude on a positive note.