Bharti Airtel today confirmed the acquisition of Zain Telecom’s 15-country Africa operations for a total enterprise value of $10.7 billion. .
Zain’s board finally approved the deal allowing Bharti, India’s largest mobile phone operator by subscribers, to expand into Africa. Once concluded, the deal would increase Bharti’s subscriber base to around 170 million, according to Wall Street Journal.
In a statement released by Zain on its website, the company confirmed that the two parties were in the process of finalizing details and a signed agreement would follow in a couple of days.
In February this year, Zain and Bharti announced they would hold exclusive talks until 25 March, about the proposed deal for Zain’s African assets, excluding Morocco and Sudan.
Bharti, whose previous attempts to enter African markets by merging with South Africa’s MTN Group failed, has already secured US$8.3 bilion in funding from various international banks.
Zain’s officials have confirmed plans to invest the funds from Bharti in Middle East markets, estimating $5 billion in net proceeds from the sale after settling liabilities.
Zain has operations in 17 African countries and more than 70 million customers spread across Africa and the Middle East, including 42 million in Africa.
Comments are closed.