Egypt’s Global Telecom Holding (GTH) has sold its Telecel Globe subsidiary, which has mobile operations in Burundi and the Central African Republic (CAR), to Econet Wireless Global for US$65m.
South Africa-based Econet is already present across a…
Egypt’s Global Telecom Holding (GTH) has sold its Telecel Globe subsidiary, which has mobile operations in Burundi and the Central African Republic (CAR), to Econet Wireless Global for US$65m.
South Africa-based Econet is already present across a dozen African nations, including Burundi.
GTH, a subsidiary of Russia-focused VimpelCom, had been planning to sell these assets for some time. In a statement today, VimpelCom CFO Andrew Davies commented: “We have previously outlined our value agenda within which our operations are reviewed to assess their future value to the group.
“The decision to sell operations in CAR and Burundi is a result of this process.”
The company, which had US$23bn worth of debt as of 30 June, recently agreed to exit Canada’s Wind and has already sold operations in Cambodia and Vietnam.
In May last year, Vimpelcom announced it had signed a share purchase agreement to sell the Burundi and CAR units.
At the time, the name of the buyer was not revealed but reports suggested it was emerging market-focused venture Neil Telecom. However, VimpelCom said today that the purchaser failed to close the deal and “forfeited a deposit it had paid to GTH in accordance with the terms of a purchase agreement that is no longer in force”.
The company declined to elaborate on the matter.
VimpelCom acquired the Telecel assets when it bought a majority stake in GTH, then known as Orascom Telecom, as part of its US$6bn merger with Italy’s Wind in 2011.
According to reports, the telco has also been looking to sell Telecel Zimbabwe in a separate transaction.
