SINGAPORE Telecommunications (SingTel) may help with the funding for Bharti Airtel's US$9 billion acquisition of Zain's African assets, a senior SingTel executive said yesterday.
SingTel, Southeast Asia's largest telecoms firm that owns 32 per cent of Bharti, said the acquisition would be financed by debt, and there was no need for it to inject money directly into its Indian affiliate since the deal would not dilute its stake.
"In one way or the other we will be part of the funding, we are a very substantial shareholder of Bharti," the CEO of Singtel's international operations, Lim Chuan Poh, told Reuters in an interview.
Bharti and Zain are in exclusive talks until March 25 for the Kuwaiti firm's operations in 15 African countries and have agreed on an enterprise value of US$10.7 billion for the assets, including US$1.7 billion of debt on Zain Africa books.
Bharti's bid is in line with the ambitions of SingTel, which is sitting on over US$1 billion in cash.
Reuters
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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