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Bharti Airtel Limited (“Bharti”) and Zain have agreed to enter into exclusive discussions until 25 March 2010 for the acquisition of Zain’s African unit (Zain Africa BV) based on an enterprise value of USD 10.7 billion.
This potential transaction does not include Zain’s operations in Morocco and Sudan and remains subject to due diligence, customary regulatory approvals and signing of final transaction documentation.
In yet another setback to its international expansion plans, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has lost the bid for managing telecom networks of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp (ETC), a state monopoly in the African nation.
“BSNL had bid aggressively for the contract, but lost to France Telecom,” sources familiar with the development told ET. They said although BSNL had made a financially better offer than France Tele, it did not qualify on some other criteria, including operational performance in the domestic market.
Siva Group’s S Tel announced that BMIC Ltd (BMIC) formed by its foreign strategic investor, Batelco is set to increase its stake in the JV to 49% through a partnership with Global Banking Corporation.
Mr. Vaidyanathan Srinivasan, CEO & Director of Siva Group said, “The increase in stake by BMIC reiterates their confidence in the strong growth potential that S Tel has in thetelecom domain in India. The strategic partnership with the Batelco Group and a strong investment bank like GBCORP, will enable S Tel to make significant strides into the telecom market in India.”
Diversified Group GTL today said it will acquire 17,500 telecom towers of mobile service provider Aircel Ltd for a total consideration of Rs 8,400 crore.
GTL’s group company GTL Infrastructure’s board of directors at their meeting held today approved the purchase of tower assets from Aircel and its group subsidiaries through special purpose vehicle (SPV), GTL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Private equity major TA Associates has picked up a minority stake in domestic handset maker Micromax for about Rs 225 crore, a top company official with the cellphone company told ET. While the exact stake amount could not ascertained, the 
Micromax executive added that it was less than 20%, valuing the handset maker at about Rs 1,000 crore.
The fund raised will help Micromax expand its handset business to Africa and Latin America. The company is set to launch operations in Nepal later this month, after which it plans to kick off its Africa operations in February-end and also launch in Latin America before the end of this fiscal.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel has clinched a deal to buy a controlling stake (70%) in Bangladesh’s fourth-biggest mobile phone operator Warid Telecom. The deal will be announced in New Delhi on Tuesday, people familiar with the development told ET.
It is also learnt that, India’s largest telco has got political clearance from the Bangladesh government, including the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who is currently on a visit to India.
Bangladesh’s telecom regulator approved Bharti Airtel’s proposed $300 million investment in a 70 per cent stake in Abu Dhabi Group’s Warid telecom, the fourth-largest mobile company in the country.
“We have approved Bharti Airtel’s plan to buy the Warid stake,” Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman Zia Ahmed told a local newspaper.
Bharti Airtel today said it is looking at acquisitions in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, especially in Bangladesh.
“We have always said that we are interested in the SAARC region… We have been interested in Bangladesh and the SAARC region,” Bharti Enterprises Deputy Group CEO and MD Akhil Gupta told reporters here.
The Ruia family owned Essar Teleholdings has sealed a deal with the Dhabi Group to buy a controlling stake in the UAE firm’s African telecom assets for an undisclosed amount, bolstering its presence in one of the world’s few remaining telecom hotspots. “Essar had reached a deal with UAE’s Abu Dhabi to buy a controlling stake in Warid Telecom’s (the vehicle for the Dhabi Group’s telecom operations) operations in Uganda and Congo and the deal will be announced in the next couple of days,” an executive with direct knowledge of the transaction told ET.
Google has agreed to acquire mobile ad firm AdMob, a move that will give it a much larger footprint in the mobile ad marketplace.
AdMob was founded in 2006 as a mobile ad network focused on selling and serving display ads on mobile browsers. However much of its recent growth has come from mobile apps — an area where iPhone and iPod Touch devices dominate.
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