Etisalat’s shareholders today backed the board’s decision to pay full 2012 dividends of 70 fils (US$0.20) per share at the annual general meeting at the company’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi.

The shareholders also approved the board’s selection of independent auditor and a bonus for the board members during the meeting.

The board proposed the dividend after the release of the 2012 annual results in February, showing the group’s net profit attributable to the equity holders of the corporation before Federal Royalty was AED 13.2 billion.

Etisalat Group sold a 9.1 per cent stake – 775 million shares – in PT XL Axiata (XL), an Indonesian cellco, grossing proceeds of AED1.87 billion.

Ooredoo (formerly Qtel) says that it will be the first network operator in the country to offer commercial LTE services, when it launches next month.

For the past several months, hundreds of Ooredoo customers have been testing the network prior to its commercial launch.

Ooredoo will launch the 4G network starting in Doha, where it has already installed 100 antennas. Ooredoo will roll out the network to the rest of the country in phases.

The LTE service runs on the 800MHz and 2.6 GHz bandwidth frequencies.

Bharti Airtel is looking to list a 15 per cent stake in its Kenyan subsidiary on the local stock market in order to bring the company in line with local limits on foreign shareholding.

Currently, Airtel Kenya is 95 per cent owned by the Indian parent company, and attempts to sell a 15 per cent stake to a local investor have proven difficult. Hence the plans for a stock market listing to bring the Indian company’s holding down to the 80 per cent maximum allowed.

Airtel has been trying to find a buyer for the 15 per cent stake since it acquired the company in 2010, but as it is still a loss making subsidiary, investors have been unwilling to invest.

The government has granted an exemption so far while Airtel seeks a buyer, and had agreed to extend that until Airtel is able to list its shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

The listing may itself be delayed though by NSE rules that require companies to have posted at least three years of profits prior to listing.

Airtel Kenya expects to break even within two years, which puts a listing at 2018 at the earliest under the current rules.

Batelco has confirmed that it is in talks to buy a subsidiary owned by the Indian mobile network operator, Reliance Communications.

India’s RCom, which is laden down with nearly US$7 billion of debt, has been looking to sell a stake for some time to help pay down some of the debt pile.

Batelco had previously invested in the country through a mobile network, but was forced to write off the investment following last year’s cancellation of the 2008 GSM licences.

The current sale negotiations are limited to Reliance’s enterprise business unit, Reliance Globalcom.

“We are in discussions with Reliance Group with respect to Reliance Globalcom,” Batelco chief executive Sheikh Mohamed bin Isa al-Khalifa said in a statement.

It is estimated that a sale of the division could raise US$1.3 billion for the indebted parent company.

Atlantique Telecom, part of The Etisalat Group, today announced that it has entered a five-year multi-country managed services agreement with Ericsson to manage its mobile networks.

During the past decade, the number of mobile connections in Africa has grown an average of 30 per cent per year and the pace of growth shows no signs of slowing. Atlantique Telecom aims to develop offerings based on value-added services to its growing subscriber base, taking into account the specific requirements of each consumer and providing solutions tailored to their expectations. This agreement enables Atlantique Telecom to focus even more on its core business – delivering innovative offerings to its customers.

The contract covers network operations, field maintenance, network optimisation and spare parts management for Atlantique Telecom’s multi-vendor mobile networks, including access, core and transmission, as well as value added services.