7/28/2019 Thehindu.com-Bharti Airtel Completes Zain Acquisition

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Bharti Airtel completes Zain acquisition

Becoming the world's f if th largest mobile operator, Sunil Mittal led Bharti Airtel on Tuesday announced that

it had completed the acquisition of Zain Telecom's Africa operations for $10.7 billion.

The company has now 180 million subscribers in 18 Asian and Af rican nations. The company announced

that it would launch the Airtel brand in Zain's o perations in all the 15 nations in October.

Announcing the completion of the deal at a press conf erence here, Bharti group Chairman Sunil Mittal said

the t ransaction is the largest ever cross -border deal in an emerging market and will result in combined

revenues of about $13 billion.''

Bharti f inally entered Af rica aft er abort ing negot iations twice for merger with MTN since 2008, with Mr. Mittal

stating that in the Zain's case Airtel would have a total contro l.

He said Zain Af rica would now be 100 per cent subsidiary of Bharti Internat ional. This deal would signalmany new investments that would go t o Africa, he added.

At present , China Mobile is the world's largest mobile player with a subscriber base of 522 million, f ollowed

by Vodaf one (348 million), Telef onica (206 million) and American Movil (201 million).

Africa strategy

Elaborat ing on Af rica strategy, Bharti's international operations in-charge Manoj Kohli said the company had

set a target o f 100 million subscribers and $5 billion revenues by 2012-13.

Bharti has acquired Zain Telecom's operations in 15 Af rican nations, excluding Sudan and Moro cco. Zainhas operations in 17 countries in the region and is claiming to be the second largest operator af ter MTN.

Asked whether he regret ted miss ing a deal with MTN twice and whether that was his f irst choice, Mr. Mitt al

said MTN was the f irst o pport unity that was available at that time. In MTN's case, we would have had

board contro l but no management contro l and no change in brand.

There were compromises to be made (in MTN). Zain is the second largest operator and that is the only

dif f erence. But we will have full contro l and our own brand.''

With t his acquisition, we will have an unparalleled f oo tprint in one o f the f astest developing regions in the

world. We are looking at more opport unities as we build more ro ll outs in Africa,'' he remarked.

The company has also reached a sett lement with Broad Communications, the single largest shareho lder in

Zain Nigeria, following which its chief Otudeko would now head Bharti's operations in Nigeria.

There is no extra payment made for the settlement. The company does not see any problem with another

small shareholder Econet Wireless in Nigeria.

For completing the deal, Bharti paid $7.9 billion and the balance $400 million f rom the to tal upf ront payment

would be done in a f ew days on completion of certain formalities,'' Mr. Mittal said.

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