French firms at heart of race for MEA mobile markets

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French firms at heart of race for MEA mobile markets

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 21 July, 2009

Continued ...

And the saga of Orascom's and France Telecom's holdings in Egypt continues. Yesterday, the stock market regulator set new conditions to accept the French giant's bid to buy Orascom's shares in ECMS, or Mobinil. The "France Telecom tender price per share should be equivalent to the price set by the international arbitration," the agency said - a price set in April at 273.26 Egyptian pounds ($49.8) a share. Orascom Telecom and France Telecom are joint shareholders in a holding company, which owns 51% of Mobinil. The court ruling applied to the holding company. Orascom Telecom also holds 20% of the free floating shares of Mobinil, for which it is demanding the same price. Three bids for these shares by France Telecom have so far been rejected and FT now needs to seek approval from a majority of the free floating shareholders.

Finally, in further MEA dealings, India's Essar Group is partnering with Dhabi Group of the UAE, with a view to investing in African telecoms assets. This is likely to lead to an equity investment in the Dhabi Group's Warid Telecom subsidiary, as growth capital, said Essar, which stated this would "be the basis of a partnership to create a significant presence in Africa". The two companies are understood to have signed a preliminary agreement already.

Through Warid Telecom, the Dhabi Group has operations in Africa, including Congo, Cote d'Ivoire and Uganda, as well as major WiMAX operator Wateen in Pakistan. And Essar - Vodafone's partner in India - has launched commercial services in Kenya in partnership with Econet Wireless, through holding company Essar Telecom Kenya, and has received a mobile license in Uganda.

Also in Pakistan, China Mobile is reported to be in talks with Telenor to merge their mobile networks there, though both operators have denied the plan. China Mobile's first international move was to pay $460m for Paktel in 2007 to buy the cellco from Millicom, and now could acquire Telenor Pakistan and merge the networks. Combined, these would have about 26m customers and 28% share in the rapidly growing market. China Mobile had previously tried to buy out Warid Telecom but failed to agree a price. It is currently the smallest of five operators in the country - the largest is Moblink, followed by Telenor, Ufone and Warid.

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