Mobily shares hit 32-month low

Mobily shares hit 32-month low

RIYADH, 21 hours, 35 minutes ago

Shares in Saudi Arabia’s Mobily tumbled for a fourth trading day on Sunday after the company scrapped its third-quarter dividend following its shock restatement of 18 months of earnings last week.

Mobily’s shares were down 4.3 per cent at SR56.00 as of 0803 GMT, slumping to a 32-month low and taking its losses to 30 per cent since November 3’s earnings announcement.

The company, 27.5 per cent owned by Abu Dhabi-listed Etisalat, late on Thursday said it would not pay a third-quarter dividend and also warned it evaluate whether to pay shareholders in the coming quarters.

This will be the first time since the third quarter of 2011 that the company has failed to pay a quarterly dividend, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Last Monday, Mobily cut its profits for 2013 and the first half of 2014 by a combined SR1.43 billion ($381.2 million), citing accounting errors, and also reported a 71 per cent drop in third-quarter profit. Mobily’s actions prompted the bourse regulator to launch a probe. – Reuters

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