Zain’s board accepted the sale of most of the company’s African assets to India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. for $10.7 billion. Bharti’s offer marks the Indian company’s third attempt to enter the continent.
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.
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.
Bharti’s move comes just months after it abandoned a $23bn deal with MTN, South Africa’s biggest mobile group after failing to secure approval from the government for the $23bn transaction.
Bharti, 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.