Qatar’s Ooredoo to combine tower assets with Zain, creating Gulf giant

Doha: Qatari telecom operator Ooredoo is in talks with two other regional firms to combine their portfolio of about 30,000 cellular towers into a jointly-owned company that’s set to be the largest firm of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ooredoo’s talks with Kuwait’s Zain Group and UAE-based TASC Towers Holding include their tower assets in Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq and Jordan. The company expects to sign definitive agreements by the end of the third quarter, it said in a statement late on Monday.

The planned transaction will help boost value for both Ooredoo and Zain, the firm said in the statement. “Both operators are committed to executing on their respective growth strategies to unlock significant capital and maximize value for shareholders.”

Any deal would be in cash and stock, Ooredoo said, without providing further details. The firm had unveiled plans to carve out its portfolio of almost 20,000 towers last year and those assets could have been valued at $3 billion to $5 billion in a deal, Bloomberg reported in November.