Etihad Etisalat, the Saudi Arabian phone company that’s lost about US$9 billion of its market value in the four months after the discovery of accounting errors, said its chief executive officer has been discharged.
Khalid Omar Al Kaf’s removal is effective February 24, the Riyadh-based phone operator known as Mobily said in a statement today. The company reserves its “rights to revert against him”, it said, without giving more information. The executive had submitted his resignation on February 21, the company said.
Mr Al Kaf had been suspended since November as the company’s audit committee investigated the errors, which prompted Saudi Arabia’s market regulator to start a probe to determine if Mobily violated rules. The telecoms company reported a fourth-quarter loss of 2.3 billion riyals (Dh2.25bn) after a profit of 2 billion riyals a year earlier.
The company also said yesterday it appointed Suliman bin Abdulrahman Al-Gwaiz as chairman after Abdulaziz Saleh Al Saghyir resigned because of “health reasons”. Deputy chief executive Serkan Okandan had been in charge since Mr Al Kaf’s suspension.
Mobily’s market value plunged to 27.1 billion riyals as of yesterday, from 61.6 billion riyals on October 30 when the shares were halted. The stock has lost 20 per cent this year and closed at 35.21 riyals in Riyadh yesterday.
Mobily said today it won’t pay dividend for the fourth quarter.
business@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter