Bharti continues acquisition trail

BUSINESS

Following its recent USD10 billion purchase of Zain’ s 15 African operations, Bharti Airtel has announced that its Board of Directors has approved the acquisition of Telecom Seychelles.

The USD62 million sale gives Bharti ownership of the biggest telecoms operator in Seychelles, with 55% of the mobile market share, and extends its footprint to 19 countries. The company has been aggressively expanding and improving its investment in its quest to become a formidable force in the global telecoms space. It has committed a total of over USD1 billion to upgrade its new acquisitions in Africa, and is expected to invest another USD10 million in improving Telecoms Seychelles.

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.