Bharti Airtel has offered 10.7 billion dollars to buy Kuwait’s Zain telecom operations in 15 African nations, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The telecom giant with 125 million mobile subscribers is now looking at emerging markets such as Africa for growth as its home market is moving towards saturation.
Zain one of the Gulf region’s first telecommunications companies has been in turmoil in recent months as its Saudi Arabia unit missed some loan covenants in January and its decade long CEO Saad Al Barrak recently stepped down.
The leading telecom operator has recently bought 70% in Bangladesh’s Warid Telecom. Sunil Bharti Mittal, the chairman and managing director, said referring to the deal “underlines our intent to further expand our operations to international markets where we can implant our unique business model.”
Bharti Airtel’s latest target Zhan has around 71 million subscribers with 42 million customers in Africa a fast growing market and is 25 percent owned by Kuwait’s sovereign fund, the Kuwait Investment Authority and any deal would require the Kuwaiti government’s approval.
The Sunil Bharti led operator has previously failed twice to strike a deal with South African MTN group as the group wants to enter one of the world’s fastest- growing telecommunications markets.