France Telecom, which owns 40 percent of Morocco’s private wireless operator Medi Telecom (Meditel) said that it will sell a 7-year bond to raise 1.2 billion dirhams, the company said in a press statement.
The bond aims to mainly help Meditel boost its network coverage as part of a 4.7 billion dirhams investment plan over the 2010-2014 period and reimburse loans from shareholders, Morocco’s second-biggest telecom operator said in a statement to the Casablanca bourse.
According to company officials in France, the move will help to increase liquidity and help buttress the private wireless carrier’s efforts to move into a larger portion of the North African country’s mobile network.
“We hope to increase the ability for Meditel to compete and eventually take on the larger more established companies in the country,” said one official.
France Telecom in the past year has been pushing hard to enter the North African market, losing out on a battle to acquire an Egyptian mobile company.
By Jonathan Terry
