Vodafone Qatar plans September IPO

Vodafone Group's mobile phone unit in Qatar plans to sell shares in its initial public offering in September, Qatar daily The Peninsula reported on Monday.

Qatar's second biggest mobile phone operator said in May it would sell a 40 percent stake in the firm in an IPO and 15 percent to local institutional investors, leaving Vodafone and its local partner, Qatar Foundation, with 45 percent ownership.

HSBC Middle East Ltd and Qatar National Bank are lead advisers for the IPO, the newspaper said.

Vodafone owns 51 percent of the new operator, which ended Qatar's Telecommunications Co monopoly. Qatar is the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas and home to about 840,000 people.

In December, Vodafone beat rivals including AT&T to win the licence, ending the last Arab mobile-phone monopoly. It paid $2.12 billion for the licence, the telecom regulator said in May. (Reuters)