Algeria’s government has confirmed it would not allow Egyptian group Orascom Telecom to sell its Algerian mobile phone unit Djezzy to South Africa’s MTN.
MTN shares in Johannesburg rallied on the news, with traders responding to concerns that MTN could have diluted its value by going ahead with the acquisition.

South African officials earlier this week used a visit to Algiers by South Africa president Jacob Zuma to ask the Algerian authorities to let MTN establish a presence in the North African market by buying Djezzy.

Algeria’s government is blocking the Egyptian firm from selling the unit to MTN, a central component in a broader deal that included Orascom Telecom’s other assets in Africa.

“The Algerian state holds to its right of pre-emption over the sale of Djezzy … and will not allow its purchase by the South African firm MTN,” trade minister Hachemi Djaaboub was quoted as saying by Algeria’s official APS news agency.
Algeria blocked the Djezzy sale last month and said it wanted to buy the business, dealing a blow to MTN’s plans to buy all or part of Orascom Telecom’s activities.

France Telecom chief financial officer, Gervais Pellissier said the company is looking for medium-sized acquisitions in emerging markets, adding that some could be announced in the coming months.

“I can’t tell you the names of the countries we are working on. There will be a few more acquisitions on the African, Middle East footprint in the next couple of months,” Pellissier commented at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Paris recently.

Pellissier added that if Indian telecom operator Bharti wanted to sell some of the Africa assets it recently acquired from Zain, then France Telecom could be interested in them.

Prior to January 1, 2010, the last time that Ericsson saw a change in leader was in 2003, a point where telecom infrastructure companies were reeling from the effects of the award of over-priced 3G licences, which had in fact nearly bankrupted an industry. Less than seven years on and the picture could not be more different as Hans Vestberg assumes the reins of a company with a solid financial base, enviable technology and market leadership positions, and an appetite to defend its dominance

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A year ago Comm. conducted a detailed interview with Vinod Kumar, the chief operating officer of the communications arm of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group. Kumar spoke of Tata Communications’ ambition to become known as an emerging market communications specialist, and one year on, at an event hosted in London, he and Tata Communications CEO, Srinath Narasimhan detailed how much closer the company is to achieving this vision

Srinath Narasimhan says Tata Communications is looking to build at least one new home market in addition to India and South Africa in the coming two-three years

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Zain announced that for the first quarter of 2010 to end-March, it recorded consolidated revenues of KWD 329.7 million (US$1.146 billion), an increase of 11 per cent year-on-year. Consolidated EBITDA reached KWD 139.2 million, down 43 per cent year-on-year, while net income for Q110 amounted to KWD 51.55 million, down 31.9 per cent compared to KWD 75.7 million achieved last year.

“These results reflect the Middle East operations are in line with adopted International Accounting Standards, which necessitates excluding all of Zain Africa’s 15 mobile operations, except for net profit, as the company entered into a definitive sale agreement with Bharti Airtel on March 30, 2010” commented Asaad Al Banwan, chairman of the board of directors of Zain.

Zain Group CEO Nabeel Bin Salamah said the healthy results were a sign of better things yet to come as Zain strives to maximise shareholders’ value in the new era. “We will consider all options before us with extreme flexibility,” he said.