Bharti Airtel to acquire Telecom Seychelles for USD 62 million

Bharti Airtel, a leading emerging markets telecom services provider, today said that its Board of Directors has approved the acquisition of 100 % of Telecom Seychelles Limited, the leading telecom operator of Seychelles, for an enterprise value of USD 62 million.

With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel will expand its African footprint to 16 countries and its overall presence to 19 countries. Bharti Airtel had recently acquired the mobile operations of Zain group in 15 countries across Africa.

Mr. Manoj Kohli, CEO (International) & Jt. MD, Bharti Airtel, said, “We are delighted at the addition of Seychelles to our Africa portfolio. Telecom Seychelles has world-class operations that include state-of-the-art 3G services. These operations will benefit further by leveraging the efficiencies of scale of our African operations.”

Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 by launching mobile services. Today, it offers 3G mobile and integrated wireline services across the island nation under the Airtel brand and has over 57% share of the mobile market.