e& Takes 12% Stake In Pakistan's Largest Fibre Operator In $850m Regional Play

Etisalat Group, trading as e&, has acquired a 12% strategic stake in Pakistan's largest fibre operator at a deal value of $850 million, in a transaction that further extends the UAE-based telecoms group's emerging-markets minority-stake strategy and gives Pakistan's fibre infrastructure rollout a significant new capital partner.

The investment is structured as a combination of primary capital — earmarked for the operator's national fibre-expansion programme — and a smaller secondary element that takes out a minority financial investor exit. The transaction values the fibre operator at roughly $7.1 billion, ahead of the privately marked levels in last year's funding round and meaningful for the wider Pakistani digital-infrastructure context.

e& Group CEO Hatem Dowidar described the investment as 'consistent with our pattern of acquiring strategic minority positions in emerging-market operators where the structural growth case is clear and where our operational engagement creates incremental shareholder value beyond the financial return alone.' The company already holds significant stakes in Vodafone Group, Mobily, and PTCL — and the fibre operator is itself adjacent to PTCL Group within Pakistan's wider telecoms market.

The strategic logic is largely about fixed-broadband economics. Pakistan has one of the lowest fixed-line penetration rates among any market with a population over 200 million, and the run-rate of new fibre connections has accelerated meaningfully since the regulatory framework was clarified in 2024. The fundamental long-run case for the operator is that household demand for stable home broadband will catch up with the global penetration curve over a 10-15 year horizon — a thesis that has played out in similar markets like the Philippines and Vietnam.

For e&'s investors, the position fits a broader pattern: the group has shifted its capital mix from majority-controlled operating telcos toward strategic minority holdings in markets where the regulatory and political risk profile is more nuanced. The Pakistan fibre stake adds to that mix without creating consolidation risk, and the framework for value extraction — operational know-how transfer alongside the financial return — is now reasonably well-understood across the e& portfolio.