Etisalat to bid for Morocco's Meditel

Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) will bid for a stake in Morocco's Meditel as it looks to expand in the Middle East and Africa, its chairman said on Friday.

Etisalat will also continue to pursue the telecom licence in Iran it was stripped of last week, Mohammed Hassan Omran told news agency Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan.

"We are looking for opportunities in the Middle East and Africa, especially at this time there are some good assets," Omran said. "Assets are becoming cheap ... we see them becoming more cheap in coming months."

"We are expecting (to get) Morocco ... We are participating in the bid for Morocco ... Meditel and we are working hard for Syria and Lebanon," Omran said, without giving further details.

Portugal Telecom has appointed Morgan Stanley to sell its 32 percent stake in Meditel, Morocco's second-largest telecoms company, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month.

The telecom operator is facing stiffer competition in its home market of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where some analysts are predicting there will be more job cuts and a decline in the population, which will weigh on the earnings of Etisalat and rival Du.

BIG MARKETS

When asked if Etisalat was likely to be able to match the 4 percent rise in profit it achieved in the first quarter, Omran said: "We are working hard to maintain that and even get it better."

He said the UAE market was becoming more difficult because expatriates were leaving, but Etisalat expected growth in Saudi Arabia, where its affiliate Etihad Etisalat was doing "better than expected".

Etisalat Egypt, the third mobile phone operator to enter the Egyptian market, was also performing "better than competitors", Omran said.

Saudi Arabia is the most-populous Gulf Arab country and Egypt has the largest population in the Arab world.

The chairman said the company was not giving up on its lost bid for Iran's third mobile telephone license.

Iran took the license away from Etisalat and its consortium partners in May, saying it "had not fulfilled its obligations".

The company said in January when it won the license that it planned to invest up to $5 billion over five years in its Iranian operation.

"In Iran, we made the best bid. Our partner could not continue and that ended up disqualifying the consortium," Omran said. "We are evaluating the possibilities. It is the big market and it has a lot of potential. But it is complex. The game is not over for us in Iran."