Al Fawares Holding, a Zain shareholder unhappy with the telecom carrier's sale process, threatened to sue potential buyers of the firm's Saudi unit in an escalation of its opposition to the deal with the UAE's Etisalat.
Al Fawares, which owns a 4.5 percent stake in Zain, said in an advertisement in Kuwaiti daily al-Watan on Sunday that it might ask for Zain to be put into receivership unless the deal is made more transparent.
Such a move, which would require convincing a court the situation endangered the company, was unlikely to succeed, said a Kuwaiti lawyer. "My personal opinion in this case is that the company is not in danger especially as it is in good (financial) condition," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Al Fawares has filed a lawsuit to halt the due diligence in the planned sale of a 46-percent Zain stake to Etisalat. A hearing has been set for Wednesday. The company says Zain's board should not have opened its books to Etisalat without board members seeing the offer. Legal action could delay the $12 billion deal, or potentially scupper it. Etisalat has said any deal could fail if definitive transaction documents are not signed by January 15, 2011.
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