‘Mobily return to profitability difficult to judge’

Mobily, 28% owned by the UAE’s Etisalat, has laid off around 400 non-Saudi staff in a bid to control costsReuters/DubaiThe chairman of Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) said it was difficult to say when the kingdom’s second-biggest mobile operator would return to profitability, according to an interview published in Asharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday. The company has been rocked by accountancy issues which have forced it to restate financial statements dating back to 2013, incurring huge losses in the process. A team appointed by the Capital Market Authority identified concerned over the operator’s contracts with customers, including those for fibre networks, according to a bourse filing from Mobily last month. According to the interview, Mobily chairman Suliman bin Abdulrahman al-Gwaiz said the company’s current focus was on returning stability to the firm, although this was unlikely to happen before the beginning of next year. Mobily, 28% owned by the UAE’s Etisalat, has laid off around 400 non-Saudi staff in a bid to control costs and expects the company to announce a new chief executive officer soon, the chairman was quoted as saying. The operator removed previous CEO Khalid al-Kaf in February, who had been suspended since November when the company first restated its results.