News

Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's largest mobile phone company, is talking to South Africa's MTN Group, the largest telecommunications provider in Africa, about a USD23 billion deal to merge the two giants.



This company would be one of the world's top 10 telcos by sales, and would have more than 200 million subscribers and annual revenue of USD20 billion.



Under the proposed deal, Airtel would take a 49% stake in MTN, while the South African company and its shareholders get roughly a 36% stake in Airtel. It is yet to be determined how the merged entity would be managed or where it would be based.



Airtel has been awarded this week a USD4 billion bridge loan by Standard Chartered bank to finance the deal, but talks are continuing with MTN over the details.



UNI africa has formed a network of unions to organise MTN's workers throughout the continent.