DUBAI: Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), which has suffered a sustained profit slump, said Sheikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa had quit as chief executive and his predecessor would temporarily re-take the helm.
Sheikh Mohamed became CEO in October 2011, having previously served as deputy chairman. He replaced long-serving Peter Kaliaropoulos, who became Group Chief Executive Officer for Strategic Assignments.
Batelco has now appointed Kaliaropoulos as chief operating officer and he, along with a three-person committee, will lead the telecom operator until a new CEO is hired, it said in an emailed statement yesterday. The committee is comprised of three members of the company’s board.
Sheikh Mohamed has left the company with immediate effect. Batelco did not give a reason for his departure, but he was unable to halt a profit slump that the company largely blamed on tougher competition at home.
It competes with units of Kuwait’s Zain and Saudi Telecom Co as well as about 10 internet providers.
Batelco, majority government-owned, has reported declining profits in 11 of the past 12 quarters, with 2012 net profit down 22.2 percent from a year earlier.
Lebanese farmland firm to invest up to $800m in Sudan
KHARTOUM: Lebanese farmland investor GLB Invest plans to invest up to $800m in Sudan to produce animal feed to be sold to Saudi Arabia, its president said yesterday.
Arab investors have launched farmland and livestock projects in the vast African country, prized for its fertile soil and easy access to irrigation water from the Nile, to help arid Gulf oil producers secure food supplies.
Firas Badra, president of Beirut-based GLB Invest, said the firm had leased 78,000 hectares of land 130km north of Khartoum to produce and export 40,000 tonnes annually of animal feed from January to Saudi Arabia.
“We are starting now with 40,000 tonnes for the time being and the project will have a maximum capacity of 750,000 tonnes by 2019,” Badra said on the sidelines of an Arab food investment conference in the Sudanese capital.
“Next year we are going to reach 250,000 tonnes,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is a market of 4 million tonnes.”
The Sudanese pound has more than halved in value since South Sudan’s secession in 2011 deprived Sudan of most oil production, the main source for dollars and state revenues.
GLB had so far spent $200m in Sudan and would increase investment up to between $750m and $800m by 2019, he said.
Agencies
