Zain Saudi Arabia’s chief executive Saad Al-Barak has confirmed that Zain will meet with Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) ‘within days’ to open the company’s books for examination. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, on 14 March Kuwait-based telecoms group Zain accepted a joint offer for its 25% stake in Zain Saudi Arabia from Batelco and Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding Company (KHC). In May the USD950 million joint-bid was cast into doubt by Batelco’s pre-emptive demand for management rights of the cellco; according to Reuters, Zain Saudi Arabia currently pays about 4% of its annual revenue to the Zain group for the management of the unit. However, last month Ahmed Halawani, executive director for private equity at KHC, told Bloomberg: ‘Batelco will be running the show from a management perspective’. Halawani also took the opportunity to indicate that Kingdom and Batelco will jointly seek out additional telecoms opportunities in the region, commenting: ‘We are going to use this asset and our alliance with Batelco to expand in this industry on a regional basis. Most of our future investments in this industry will be alongside Batelco’. The deal for Zain Saudi Arabia is expected to be completed by the end of September.