Kuwait’s Zain Accepts Bharti Airtel Bid at $10.7 billion
Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile phone company by subscribers, finally succeeded to buy Kuwait’s African asset ZAIN excluding Sudan and Morocco at $10.7 billion. The Indian telecom firm will pay Zain $10 billion by mid-April, and the remaining $700 million will be paid before the end of the year. The statement on Sunday comes a day after several unsourced reports in Kuwaiti newspapers said Zain has received an offer from Bharti to buy their African assets.
Zain’s African assets have been on the block for about seven months and attracted interest from several others companies, including Vivendi and China Mobile. But Bharti Airtel put in the most compelling offer.
Bharti Airtel, which has nearly 120 million subscribers, has been gearing up for a major expansion into emerging markets. Last month, it created a special international division to scout assets abroad and completed one major deal, agreeing to buy a 70% stake in Bangladesh’s Warid Telecom for an initial investment of $300 million.
On 30 Aparil Kuwait’s telecom group Zain has finally announced that the Gabon government has approved the sale of Zain Gabon to India’s Bharti Airtel. Bharti had struck a deal with Zain in March to buy the Kuwaiti telecoms operations in 15 African countries including Gabon for $9 billion. Gabon said Zain Gabon had not complied with telecoms regulations.
“We have received confirmation from the Gabon government advising us that they have no objection to the transaction between Zain and Bharti Airtel,” said Nabil bin Salamah, Zain’s CEO.
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