Monday 31 May 2010

Saudi Arabia Capital Markets Authority Levies SAR7.3 Million Penalty Against Saudi Telecom Ex Director

The Saudi CMA announced today that a final judgment had been made in the case of Mr. Saleh Bin Mohammed Bin Saleh AlHajaaj.  He had been accused of insider trading in shares of Saudi Telecom on 19 and 20 December 2004.

The judgment consists of the following:
  1. Payment to the CMA of the SAR7,249,365 representing the profits on his trading those two days from information he obtained as a member of the Board.
  2. Payment of SAR100,000 in fines.
  3. A three year ban from working for any company traded on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawwul).

4 comments:

The Rageful Cynic said...

Reuters is reporting that KIA may sell its 24.6% stake in Zain, currently worth about $4.5 bn....

yet another nail in the coffin of a once mighty empire (Zain being the empire, not Kuwait :p)

Abu 'Arqala said...

TRC

There is a good article in today's AlQabas
http://alqabas.com.kw/Article.aspx?id=609742&date=31052010
on the topic.

Looks like the Haya has asked investment banks for a fair value of the shares - and a comparison to what it could receive. And then will decide what to do. Profits on a sale would be fantastic - not just the revenues but the Haya's cost basis.

Now that Zain is being managed for cash - to extract some major shareholders from "wise" investments and commitments they made elsewhere - this may be the time to exit.

You know the old riddle "How does a Kuwaiti make a small fortune? By starting out with a large one."

Abu 'Arqala said...

TRC

And today articles in which the Haya denies having engaged firms to value Zain.

AlQabas has a follow-up article to what it published yesterday. Said that an officer of the KIA told them the Haya had hired a firm to evaluate Zain's ability to make its promised distributions.

Interestingly, as per AlQabas, the Haya voted against distributions at the shareholders' meeting.

The Rageful Cynic said...

LOL to the riddle, i've never heard that one before.

ya apparently there was a rumor going around the market yesterday that Zain would be stalling or postponing dividend payout b/c of the haya objection but i think it's just "7achi", seems like its gonna go through..

i think once Zain books the profit from the sale (in Q2 i believe) that will be the time to exit. Given that the company has effectively been turned into an ATM, there's not much point in investing in it, especially now that KIA is looking to get out. It sends a pretty harsh (albeit true) message.

wallah 7aram.