العربية: "زين" تؤكد انها رفضت عرض فيفندي لبيع عملياتها في أفريقيا
PARIS, July 20 (Reuters) - French media and telecom giant Vivendi (VIV.PA) said on Monday it had called off talks to buy a majority stake in Zain Group's (ZAIN.KW) African telecom operations while a Kuwaiti paper said Zain had rejected the bid.
Shares in Vivendi, which has vowed to keep its BBB credit rating intact and maintain its dividend at current levels, rose by more than 4 percent on Monday after it said the talks were "interrupted", while shares in Kuwaiti mobile operator Zain slipped 1.7 percent.
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Vivendi said it had called off the talks as the investment was not consistent with its financial criteria.
"Vivendi has applied its usual criteria of profitability and financial discipline to this potential investment in emerging markets, in the best interests of its shareholders," the media and telecoms company said in a statement.
Vivendi would not comment further and Zain could not be immediately reached for comment.
Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas reported on Monday that Zain, the Gulf Arab region's third-largest telecom firm by market value, had rejected a bid from Vivendi to buy a 65 percent stake in Zain Africa for about $10.5 billion.
Zain Chief Executive Saad al-Barrak turned down the offer, Qabas said in the unsourced report.
The paper did not give a reason for the rejection but said it could be related to the method of payment.
Zain has received new offers from other international firms, which it will evaluate, the paper also said, citing unidentified sources.
A France Telecom spokesman said that it had been named in the Kuwaiti report but that the company was not interested in buying Zain's African telecom operations Continued...
Barrak told Reuters earlier this month that Zain was in early talks with potential buyers for a stake in its African operations and could consider a partner for a 25 percent stake. [ID:nL834805]
Rumours that the group was interested in Zain's African activities, which Vivendi confirmed on July 9, have depressed Vivendi's share price in recent weeks.
Analysts have voiced concern over difficulties to raise a significant amount of funds in the current economic climate and over the risk a large acquisition could endanger debt rating.
By 1113 GMT, Vivendi shares were up 4.01 percent at 18.15 euros, off a session-high of 18.28 euros while Vivendi was up 1.69 percent at 1.16 euros.
"Concerns over such an acquisition had caused weakness in the Vivendi share price over the last two months ... hence we would expect an end to the talks to have some immediate positive impact," said Goldman Sachs analyst Richard Jones.
Bankers said earlier this month that Vivendi was seeking a 4.5 billion euro syndicated loan to back its acquisition of a majority stake in Zain's African telecom operations.
Zain, whose biggest shareholder is Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund, has spent more than $12 billion to expand in Africa since 2005 and plans to use another $2 billion this year. (Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal in Kuwait; editing by Marcel Michelson and Karen Foster)
