The Batelco- Kingdom Holding consortium today issued a statement announcing it was granted access to Zain Saudi’s records thus ensuring the deal can progress to the final stages.

The board of directors of Zain Saudi has approved a non binding term sheet with the Kingdom Holding Company and Batelco Group consortium, which paves the way for due diligence to be completed for the sale of the 25 per cent stake in Zain Saudi .

Batelco Group CEO, Peter Kaliaropoulos, commented that “we were always confident that the consortium would satisfactorily address all matters raised by Zain Saudi. This is a complex transaction involving four different companies. Understandably all issues relating to the due diligence exercise and the scope and commercial terms of the management agreement required careful consideration and negotiation by all parties.”

The due diligence is expected to be completed by end of August and the transaction finalised by the end of Q3.

Speculation last month suggested that the deal for the Kingdom Holding/Batelco consortium to acquire the stake in Zain Saudi could run aground as a result of Batelco not being guaranteed management control of the cellco. It had been suggested Batelco would consider lowering its offer for the stake if it was not able to secure management rights, a move that could affect the entire transaction being ratified.

The IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has mobilised a US$115 million financing package for Vodafone Ghana from Chinese, German, and African institutions to help the company enhance its telecommunications network, and spread the benefits of mobile phone and broadband services in Ghana, especially in rural areas.

The debt package includes financing from a diverse group of commercial banks and development finance institutions, and is IFC’s first syndication with the Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank.

In 2010, IFC provided Vodafone Ghana with a US$100 million loan from its own account consisting of a US$75 million senior loan and US$25 million subordinated loan.

India’s Essar Group has been forced to cancel the purchase of mobile networks in Uganda and Congo after the company was unable to secure regulatory approval for the transaction.

Essar Group agreed to purchase the networks from Warid Telecom in November 2009 for US$318 million, but the two companies have now cancelled the deal as, “certain condition precedents pertaining to government clearance were not met”.

This development comes on the back of Essar’s sale of its 33 per cent stake in Vodafone Essar, the holding company that owned 75 per cent of the Indian mobile network.

It is also reported that Essar is looking to sell its Kenyan subsidiary and withdraw from the mobile network operator business entirely.

Nokia announced that it has signed a patent licence agreement with Apple. The agreement will result in settlement of all patent litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia and Apple of their respective complaints to the US International Trade Commission.

The financial structure of the agreement consists of a one-time payment payable by Apple and on-going royalties to be paid by Apple to Nokia for the term of the agreement. The specific terms of the contract are confidential.

“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”

This agreement is expected to have a positive financial impact on Nokia’s recently revised outlook for the second quarter 2011 of around break-even non-IFRS operating margin for Devices & Services.

Nokia has announced full Arabic support for its Ovi Store across all existing platforms. Consumers whose devices are set to Arabic user interface will automatically view the Ovi Store in Arabic when entering.

“Arabic is the third most spoken language in the world with more than 300 million native speakers,” said Tom Farrell, GM, Nokia Lower Gulf. “We are very excited to now offer these consumers access to Nokia’s Ovi Store on a broad range of Nokia smartphones and mobile devices in their mother tongue.”

The majority of Arabic speaking consumers are located in the Middle East and Africa region where Nokia has seen significant growth in Ovi Store downloads. Primarily Arabic speaking countries account for almost 75 per cent of the overall MEA downloads, with Saudi ranking amongst the world’s top 10 download countries and UAE and Egypt in the top 25 globally.

There are also three local developers from MEA whose applications have each surpassed the one million download mark. One of these is a Java-based application “FunSMS” created by Edumid in Pakistan. Another local success story is AsgaTech from Egypt, which has published a number of apps on Ovi Store, resulting in a cumulative two million downloads to date.

In addition to Arabic support, the latest version of Ovi Store brings enhanced consumer features such as application updates, popularity calculations and web apps for Series 40 devices.

In April Nokia and Etisalat announced that through their ongoing collaboration, consumers across the Middle East were set to be able to purchase content from the Ovi Store with billing directly to their mobile phone account.