Shares in the Qatari telecom operator Ooredoo rallied to close 3 per cent higher yesterday after it reported a 51 per cent fall in third-quarter net profit on Sunday.
Qatar's main stock market index was dragged down 0.2 per cent after the open, as the company's shares initially lost 0.7 per cent before recovering.
Ooredoo made a net profit of 370 million Qatari riyals (Dh373m) in the three months to September 30, it said after the market close on Sunday, compared with a profit of 755.8 million riyals a year ago.
The average forecast of three analysts polled by Reuters was for a quarterly profit of 499.3 million riyals.
It operates in about a dozen territories across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and its earnings have been hit since mid-2013 by foreign exchange losses and plunging earnings in Iraq, although a strong domestic performance has helped mitigate the impact.
After a period of volatile profitability, the company had reported rising profits in the previous four quarters.
Separately, Saudi Arabian telecom operator Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) said yesterday it had extended its agreement with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) to jointly study options for their network of transmitter towers past an October 31 deadline.
"As discussions of this nature can take time to produce results, the parties have agreed to extend the memorandum of understanding [MoU]," Mobily said in yesterday's bourse statement.
"As previously disclosed, the MoU will be automatically extended for consecutive periods of 30 calendar days, unless otherwise agreed between the parties," it said, referring to a July 31 filing announcing the joint study.
Mobily and STC, as well as third operator Zain Saudi Arabia, have been considering whether to offload towers in recent months to cut costs, either through a sale to a private investor or through a merging of their networks.
* Reuters
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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COMPANY PROFILE
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Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
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La Mer lowdown
La Mer beach is open from 10am until midnight, daily, and is located in Jumeirah 1, well after Kite Beach. Some restaurants, like Cupagahwa, are open from 8am for breakfast; most others start at noon. At the time of writing, we noticed that signs for Vicolo, an Italian eatery, and Kaftan, a Turkish restaurant, indicated that these two restaurants will be open soon, most likely this month. Parking is available, as well as a Dh100 all-day valet option or a Dh50 valet service if you’re just stopping by for a few hours.