Telecom leaders meet in Dubai to assess M&A opportunities across Middle East and Africa

April 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Dubai, April 09, 2013 – Telecom operators, investment bankers, lawyers and investors are meeting in Dubai on April 23-24 at the annual TMT Finance Middle East North Africa 2013 conference to assess the latest opportunities for investment across the region.

The conference, which is now in its seventh year, features a series of leadership panels on telecom strategy and investment. The TMT M&A Panel is expected to form one of the highlights again this year as leading telecom operators from the region such as Etisalat of the UAE, Ooredoo (Qtel) of Qatar, and Batelco of Bahrain continue to play a leading role in international investment activity.

"The key themes for telecoms M&A in the MENA region are likely to be realignment and consolidation in Africa, as well as outbound investment from the Middle East" said Joachim Fleury, Global Head of TMT at Clifford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, who will feature on the TMT M&A Panel alongside leaders from Etisalat, Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered and UBS.

A new session on Global Telecoms Sustainability will also assess how telecom operators and investors can protect and sustain investment into new telecom operations in emerging markets, which has become an important issue. The panel, chaired by leading telecom expert Mohamed Amersi, CEO of Emergent Telecom Ventures, will tackle issues around risk, corporate governance, communicating compliance and selecting local partners.

“M&A activity is expected to increase across the Middle East and Africa region over the next 12 months, as operators rationalise existing portfolios and seek new opportunities to invest,” said Ben Nice, News Editor, of TMT Finance the conference organisers.  “Batelco, Etisalat and Ooredoo continue to lead the way internationally as we have been reporting on deals in India, Europe, East Africa and Morocco recently, so it is an exciting time to have the conference.”

Over 200 delegates are expected to attend the conference again this year including speakers from Vodafone Egypt, Emirates Investment Authority, Saudi Telecom (STC), Etisalat, Barclays Capital, Analysys Mason, Gulf Investment Corporation, Eaton Towers, Alcazar Capital, Intel, Ericsson, GSMA, PwC, Morgan Stanley, Booz & Company, Credit Agricole, Capital MSL, TRA Lebanon, Google, Yahoo!, Du, iMENA, MEVP,  Neostratus, Orixcom and others.

The conference takes place at Mina A’ Salam Resort Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai and includes the TMT Finance Awards Dinner.

For more information on the programme and speakers http://www.tmtfinance.com/mena/programme

Register to attend at http://tmtfinance.com/mena/register/