Méditel, Morocco’s second-largest mobile phone operator, has confirmed that it is talking to several foreign telcos about buying a stake in the company.
The talks mark a u-turn in Méditel’s strategy as the company rejected bids from at least four Arab…
Méditel, Morocco’s second-largest mobile phone operator, has confirmed that it is talking to several foreign telcos about buying a stake in the company.
The talks mark a u-turn in Méditel’s strategy as the company rejected bids from at least four Arab telcos to buy a stake just nine months ago.
Speaking at a press conference in Casablanca, Mohamed Elmanjra, the company’s chief executive officer, said, “We are constantly solicited by foreign operators and responses are made.
“Nothing is closed. There are talks with lots of foreign operators. But to say that something is done or signed is not at all the case.”
Méditel is equally owned by Morocco’s Caisse de Depot et de Gestion (CDG) and a consortium of investors led by the operator’s president, Othman Benjelloun.
Last summer, the CDG and Benjelloun’s backers bought out Méditel’s two largest shareholders: Telefonica and Portugal Telecom.
The two Iberian telcos each sold 32.2% stakes worth a total of E800m to the Moroccan investors.
At least four Arab telcos bid for the stakes at the same time, although the size of their bids has never been disclosed.
The four bidders were Qtel, Etisalat, Batelco and Saudi Telecom.
In February, Etisalat’s chairman, Mohammad Omran, said that the company was “investigating opportunities across North Africa and the Middle East”.
Méditel performed well in 2009 increasing its market share by 2.6 percentage points to 37.3% giving it a total of 9.4 million customers.
However, it remains far behind the former monopoly Maroc Telecom, which had a market share of 60.3% and 15.3 million customers at the end of December last year.