Mobilink announced the completion of its merger after all regulatory approvals, that have been granted.
A press statement issued by the companies said that the combined Mobilink and Warid entity will be the leading telecommunications provider of 2G, 3G and LTE services in Pakistan, providing higher quality national voice and data coverage, faster downloads, and a wider portfolio of products and services.
With the completion of the merger transaction, Mobilink now enters the next major phase of its transformation and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Hedberg will hand over the CEO role of Mobilink and Warid to Aamir Ibrahim, currently Chief Commercial Officer and Deputy CEO of Mobilink.
Aamir Ibrahim Becomes the CEO and Chief of Mobilink and Warid
Aamir will drive forward and execute the Mobilink and Warid integration, supported by a world-class transformation team from the VimpelCom Group.
Mobilink’s turnaround over the past two years has shown significant improvements in service revenue growth (from -5% to +12% year on year), ARPU (from -11% to +15% year on year) and increased EBITDA margins (from -3 p.p. to +4 p.p year on year).
With effect from today, the Mobilink board is chaired by His Highness Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan, with Jon Eddy as Vice Chairman and consists of five other directors nominated by VimpelCom and GTH.
After legal approvals, now both companies will work on integration to become one company and single brand. This could take 6 to 9 months
The Warid board is chaired by His Highness Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan, with Jon Eddy as Vice Chairman and consists of three other directors nominated by VimpelCom and GTH.
On conclusion of the legal merger, the combined entity will have a single board and management structure.
As of today, Aamir Ibrahim becomes the CEO of both Mobilink and Warid. Andrew Kemp, the current CFO of Mobilink, will also assume the Warid CFO role.
Jeffrey Hedberg, Chief Executive Officer of Mobilink, said: “Today we are delighted to bring Mobilink and Warid together. Personally, it has been an exciting and rewarding journey and I will look back with deep pride at how our Mobilink team has worked tirelessly through this rapid turnaround to make the company so successful. The results speak for themselves. I have worked closely with Aamir and the team over the last two years and as I hand over the baton, I have full confidence that Mobilink and Warid will grow from strength to strength.”
The legal merger of the two companies, which will result in one merged legal entity having the same board, and management described above, is expected to be completed within approximately six months, subject to the fulfilment of the required legal processes in Pakistan. Mobilink and Warid will shortly file a petition to the Islamabad High Court in order to commence the process of legal merger.
As previously stated, the transaction is expected to create capex and opex synergies with a net present value of approximately USD 500 million with an annual run rate of well over USD 100 million of free cash flow improvements by year three. The combined revenue of both companies for the 12 months to March 2016 was USD 1.4 billion.
@ProPakistani
