Cote d’Ivoire’s ministry of information and communication has approved the sale by Etisalat of Atlantique Telecom Cote d’Ivoire, which operates under the Moov brand, to Maroc Telecom.
The decision was announced during a council of ministers…
Cote d’Ivoire’s ministry of information and communication has approved the sale by Etisalat of Atlantique Telecom Cote d’Ivoire, which operates under the Moov brand, to Maroc Telecom.
The decision was announced during a council of ministers yesterday.
In May, UAE’s Etisalat said it would sell its operations in six West African countries to Maroc Telecom, after buying a majority stake in the Moroccan incumbent.
The assets, which provide both mobile voice and data services, are in Benin, the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Niger and Togo and have been valued at around US$650m.
The UAE operator closed the acquisition of a 53% stake in Maroc Telecom from Vivendi for €4.2bn in May. Etisalat did not disclose the rationale behind the subsequent Atlantique Telecom deal but an analyst suggested at the time that its decision had been motivated by Maroc Telecom’s success with its own subsidiaries in the region – Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali and Mauritania.
According to a recent report, Gabon’s government has also rubber-stamped the merger of Etisalat and Maroc Telecom’s local units, leaving the country with only two mobile operators: Airtel and Azur, which is reportedly seeking equity funding at present.
To remedy this situation, Gabon is reportedly in the process of issuing an MVNO licence, which has already attracted interest from Orange.
Etisalat, which operates in 15 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, first acquired 50% of Atlantique Telecom in 2005 for AED432m (US$117.6m). It regularly increased its stake in the company until 2010 when it bought the last remaining 18% for US$75m.
