Kuwait Projects Company (Kipco) is to delay the sale in Middle East pay-TV platform OSN until 2021. The company is waiting for the markets to bounce back following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its continuing with its plan to bring new partners on board.
A sale of all of part of its stake has been in the forefront of Kipco’s mind since November 2018 when it hired Goldman Sachs to advise on the disposal of its 60.5% holding. However, by March it had built its 60.5% stake up to 87.6%.
OSN has faced competition from Netflix and Amazon Prime, but its own OTT platform OSN Streaming has seen subscriptions treble over the last quarter as a result of the addition of Disney+.
“The encouraging part is that without the partners, we are doing fantastic and with the partners we will hopefully be able to report even better performance,” Kipco Group CFO Pinak Maitra told an earnings call. “It is a great place to have after very difficult three years and to come out on the right side of it.”
The company has signed partnership agreements with 15 telcos in the region as it looks to further develop its OTT offer.
A number of non-scripted Arabic language shows are also in production.
