Zain Group has announced that it has completed its capital increase, raising US$4.49 billion with 99% of all shareholders subscribing. The number of subscribed shares exceeded 1.4 billion, bringing the total number of Zain shares to 4.28 billion with total shareholders’ equity reaching US$6.42 billion as at June 30, 2008.
The amount raised is unprecedented in Kuwait’s history exceeding all expectations, given the gloomy trends that have recently dominated local and international markets and resulted in sharp declines in the prices of oil as well as significant collapses in the financial markets worldwide.
"The successful completion of the largest capital increase in the history of Kuwait is an unanimous vote of confidence by our shareholders in Zain's management team, the performance to date and in our profitable expansion strategy aiming to be a top-ten global mobile operator by 2011. The proceeds of this capital increase will be used to finance future strategic expansion plans and meet financial commitments," said Dr Saad Al Barrak, Zain’s chief executive officer.
All the Group's financial indicators he said, are now geared up to witness exponential growth on the back of Zain's huge investments in expansion projects in many of the Middle East and African markets in which we operate. "We expect these investments to bring about substantial increases in the Group's future revenues and net profits," he added.
