Bharti Airtel to buy Telecom Seychelles for $62 m

Continuing its acquisition spree in the international market, Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said the company will acquire 100 per cent stake in Telecom Seychelles for $62 million (about Rs 288 crore).

The acquisition comes on heels of Bharti acquiring Zain Telecom's Africa assets for $10.7 billion, for which the deal was closed in June.

"The Board of Directors has approved the acquisition deal today morning," Bharti Airtel CEO (International) and Joint MD Manoj Kohli said.

With taking Telecom Seychelles into its fold, Bharti Airtel will expand its African footprint to 16 countries and its overall presence to 19 nations.

"We are delighted at the addition of Seychelles to our Africa portfolio. Telecom Seychelles has world-class operations that include state-of-the art 3G services. These operations will benefit further by leveraging the efficiencies of scale of our African operations," Kohli added.

When asked whether Bharti Airtel had presence in Seychelles, a company spokesperson clarified that the company never had any stake in Telecom Seychelles and it was only using its brand name.

Now Bharti Airtel will acquire all stake from its promoters to make it part of African operations.

Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 by launching mobile services and today it offers 3G mobile and integrated wireline services across the island nation under the Airtel brand and has over 57 per cent share of the mobile market.