Zain's General Assembly agreed on Monday to abide by its Board of Directors' proposal to distribute 50 percent of the corporation's profits to its shareholders at 50 fils per share. The assembly endorsed the proposal, tendered by its board, to issue bearer bonds estimated at approximately KD429.7 million. It also approved the board's purchase of 10 percent of the corporate shares. The Board of Directors stood firm and defended the expansion strategy they have taken in front of shareholders, whose questions were more or less accusatory. Some somber shareholders asked long, provocative questions about the loss in the stock's and bond's value which were bought earlier by the board for KD500 million. One shareholder maintained losses amounted to KD288 million. He advised the board to spend the money to settle debts instead of buying stocks whose value dropped recently. He argued that he saw a 54 percent loss in comparison to last year, which meant “bad results for Zain. Purchasing those bonds was a good investment,” Zain's Board Director Assad Al-BanwanAssad Al-Banwan said. He added that the real value of Zain stock was not what it was in the market now and he admitted that there were some plans to sell bonds if they were asked to by shareholders. He also said that Zain had settled some KD1.2 billion of its debts and made its first payment to Iraqi company ‘Iraqona' which it recently took over. Meanwhile, Zain Bahrain has promoted two senior staff members to key positions within its sales team. Haitham Sabbah has been promoted to the post of consumer sales and customer services manager. In his new assignment, Sabbah will help to leverage the company's position as a technology leader in the telecom industry and raise the bar on consumer sales of its rich suite of innovative products. Zain Bahrain's corporate sales and customer services team will be led by Mohammed Hussam who has in-depth knowledge of telecommunications and networking.
