Saudi Telecom Company (STC) said on Tuesday it would book a SR621-million ($166 million) gain in the fourth quarter of this year due to expropriation of some of its land holdings by the government.

The company originally announced in June that the government had seized a 1.05 million-sq-m plot in the Al Faisaliah district of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with a book value of SR105.3 million ($28 million).

On Tuesday, Saudi Telecom said the government had begun transferring ownership of the land in exchange for compensation of SR726.3 million ($193.4 million).

It added that it did not think the compensation amount valued the land fairly, so it would appeal the decision and announce any changes to the compensation in future.

Land in Al Faisaliah is worth SR1,300-1,700 ($346.2 to $453) per sq m in the old part of the district and SR1,800-2,700 ($479 to $719)  in the ring road industrial zone, consultants JLL told Reuters in June.

Such estimates suggested the land seized from STC could be worth between SR1.36 billion ($362 million) and SR2.83 billion ($753 million).-Reuters