Bharti overcomes hurdle on way to acquire Zain’s African assets
17 Mar 2010
Bharti Airtel seems to be set to land its $9-billion purchase bid of Zain's African assets, overcoming the last lap hurdle posed by an ownership issue over Zain's Nigerian units.
Zain Nigeria and South Africa-based Econet Wireless Holdings - a minority shareholder were locked in a dispute that complicated the Bharti group's third effort - twice through the acquisition of MTN - at getting hold of a meaningful business acquisition in Africa.
However, according to a Reuters report quoting sources familiar with the situation, a team of bankers from UBS, which has been advising Zain, along with Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal had visited Nigeria last week.
The report said the two parties had worked their way around the problem though details were not disclosed.
Quoting a source familiar with the deal, the report said the Nigeria deal situation had not come as a surprise to anyone and that it would not derail the deal. The source said Bharti was hopeful an agreement would be reached by 25 March.
