Millicom could be in MTN’s acquisition sights

Millicom has been identified as one potential acquisition target for MTN Group given the South Africa cellco has confirmed it is eyeing opportunities to expand in Asia having ruled out any more attempts to merge with an Indian partner.

MTN faced pressure from South African politicians to ensure that the company remains a majority South African owned company, which has made it difficult for the firm to expand overseas through share based mergers. It needs to pay cash, or seek deals where share based transactions do not substantively dilute the South African shareholders’ stake in the firm.

Currently, the South African government owns a 14 per cent stake in MTN through a state pension fund, and Millicom, which has operations in Latin America and across Africa is viewed as a good potential fit. Such a deal would cost around US$10 billion, which in turn would not overly dilute MTN’s US$40 billion market capitalisation.

MTN already has a US$4 billion cash pile.

Cell C details positive momentum being experienced

Cell C announced that its subscriber base grew by 35 per cent year-on-year in 2013, which translated to a total revenue increase of 14 per cent during the period.

By the end of 2013, Cell C boasted a customer base of 13.6 million, a net growth of 3.5 million for the year. The growth was primarily driven by the prepaid market, which was up by 40 per cent. Prepaid customer spend also increased by 31 per cent year-on-year.

Hybrid, post-paid and broadband subscribers grew by 14 per cent, nine per cent and 55 per cent respectively.

Moving into 2014, the company continues to see robust customer growth, with most months seeing Cell C adding over 1 million gross connections. During March 2014 the company added 1.6million gross connections, with 1 million of those being net connections. The total customer base of Cell C as at the end of April 2014 was 16.6 million.

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Ooredoo Global Services launched

Ooredoo today announced the establishment of Ooredoo Global Services (OGS), which will serve as the group’s wholesale arm.

OGS offers a single point of contact for wholesale carriers to access Ooredoo’s 18 operating companies representing one of the largest Internet peering networks in the Middle East that is interconnected with more than 100 operators, including many of the largest in the world.

The company has appointed Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi to serve as the entity’s CEO. He previously served as Ooredoo Qatar’s chief wholesale and international officer since 2012. For more than 29 years, Al Kubaisi has held managerial roles across the company’s international infrastructure, business services, and regulatory units.

Tigo Tanzania targets enterprises and SMEs

Tigo Tanzania announced today that it has created a Tigo Business unit to develop a series of products using high-speed fibre connections to support the needs of the country’s large corporate organisations as well as its small and medium-sized enterprises.

The newly-established team plans to launch these new services from the third quarter of 2014 by deploying Tigo’s existing fibre network and expanding it. Local and international businesses will be able to benefit from Tigo’s own extensive fibre infrastructure, which supports its mobile network, and on which there is considerable capacity to support the high-speed connectivity now required by many Tanzanian companies.

Tigo is part of the international telecommunications and media company Millicom, many of whose other operations offer such business-to-business services.

The company is also exploring the potential for deploying cable services to consumers in relevant urban areas and expects a pilot service to be underway later in 2014.

Alan Knott-Craig given executive board position at Cell C

In a statement from incoming Cell C chairman, Mohammed Hariri, he announced the return of Alan Knott-Craig to Cell C. Knott-Craig was said to have made a remarkable recovery since he suffered a stroke in November 2013 and has officially been back at the company since May 5, 2014.

He returned to the company in the capacity of executive board member of Cell C and in his new role he will consult and advise on matters not only relating to Cell C but also concerning the Oger Telecom Group.

Knott-Craig joined Cell C on April 1, 2012.

Hariri also announced that Jose Dos Santos has now been confirmed CEO of Cell C, having been acting CEO over the last five months following Knott-Craig’s absence.