MTN president and CEO Phuthuma Nhleko has described suggestions that India’s Bharti Airtel poses a big threat to the JSE-listed telecommunications group’s interests in Africa as “exaggeration and oversimplification”. Analysts this week raised concerns that Bharti, which recently acquired Zain’s African assets, could start a price war with MTN in several key markets, including Nigeria.
Telecommunications group MTN faces tougher times in the 20 territories in which it operates outside SA as regulators across Africa and the Middle East begin to flex their muscles. Outgoing group president and CEO Phuthuma Nhleko says operators across the region are facing tougher regulations.
India’s largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, said on Tuesday it had sealed a US$10,7bn deal to buy Zain’s African assets, ranking it among the world’s top five cellular players. With the acquisition, the second-largest foreign takeover in Indian corporate history, Bharti will acquire Kuwait-based Zain’s African mobile services operations in 15 countries, including Kenya, Nigeria [...]
Indian telecommunications tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal is on the cusp of achieving his dream of building a presence in Africa with a planned US$10,7bn buy-out of assets from Kuwait-based Zain. But analysts say Mittal, a self-confessed business “junkie” always hungering for the next deal, will need all his entrepreneurial chutzpah to turn around Zain’s loss-making [...]
Shares in India’s Bharti Airtel edged higher Tuesday on reports it would sign a US$10,7bn deal to acquire the African telecommunications assets of Kuwait’s Zain. Officials at the New Delhi-based firm declined to comment, citing confidentiality rules, but Kuwait’s Al-Watan daily reported the signing would take place Tuesday at the headquarters of Zain Africa in [...]
Kuwait’s Zain said on Thursday it expects to close a $ 10,7bn deal with India’s Bharti Airtel “within days” for the sale of its operations in 15 African countries. “The (Zain) board is pleased to report that the due diligence process has been completed and that the parties are finalising definitive agreements, which are expected to [...]
India’s largest telecommunications operator, Bharti Airtel, has finalised US$8,3bn in financing needed for its proposed acquisition of the Africa assets of Kuwait’s Zain, Bharti said on Sunday. “The financing was oversubscribed, with major international banks committing to underwrite the total amount,” Bharti said in a statement. Zain accepted a $10,7bn offer from Bharti Airtel in February to [...]
“It’s difficult to let go.” Phuthuma Nhleko, MTN’s group president and CEO, sounds almost rueful when I ask him why he’s decided to hang up his hat at the mobile operator. “You do a lot of soul searching,” he tells me in an interview at the Melrose Arch Hotel in Johannesburg, a day after presenting [...]
Indian telecommunications tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal is hoping to make it third time lucky as he seeks to gain a presence in Africa, one of the world’s least developed mobile phone markets. After two failed attempts to tie up with South African flagship MTN, the founder-chairman of cellular giant Bharti Airtel announced this week a [...]
Kuwait’s Zain said on Tuesday it expects to make returns of up to US$5bn from selling its operations in Africa to India’s Bhrati Airtel for $10,7bn dollars. Under the agreement, Bharti is to pay $10bn when the deal is completed and the remaining $700m after one year of signing the agreement, the company said in a [...]
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