DUBAI: Oman Telecommunications (Omantel) will start meeting investors on April 8 ahead of a potential US dollar bond, the company said on Thursday.
Citi and Credit Suisse have been hired as global coordinators for the potential deal, alongside Bank ABC, Bank Muscat, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers to organise fixed income investor meetings in Dubai, London, New York and Boston, the company said.
Omantel bought a 12.1 per cent stake in Kuwait-based telecom operator Zain in November last year, which brought its stake in the company up to 21.9 per cent, making it the Kuwaiti company’s second largest shareholder after Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, the Kuwait Investment Authority.
Omantel financed the deal with a combination of long-term and bridge loan facilities, led by the same group of banks that is now arranging fixed income investor meetings.
Omantel’s chief executive Marhoon Al Mamari told Reuters in an interview last year that the bridge loan would be followed by a roadshow in early 2018 to convert around $1.4 billion (Dh5.13 billion) of the debt financing used for the deal into a bond or sukuk, or a mix of both, with maturities of five and 10 years.
