Saudi telecom suspended over 'loss': market regulator

(MENAFN- AFP) Saudi Arabia's stock market regulator on Wednesday suspended trading in one of the country's major telecommunication firms, Etihad Etisalat, after the company reported losses of $243 million last year.

The firm, known as Mobily, is a unit of United Arab Emirates giant Etisalat.

The suspension will run "until Mobily discusses the reasons that led to a net loss amounting to 913 million riyals", after having earlier reported a preliminary net profit of 220 million riyals for the 12 months to December 31, the Capital Market Authority said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Etihad Etisalat, meanwhile, announced that its chief executive officer, Khalid Omar al-Kaf, had been removed, Bloomberg News reported.

He had been suspended since November after the discovery of accounting errors.