Egypt’s Mobinil says that it is currently negotiating a loan from a consortium of four banks. In a statement to the stock exchange, the company said that it is looking to raise EGP2.5 billion (US$357 million) from the banks, which will be used for network expansion projects.

The debt raising could suggest that a previous plan to sell fresh shares to raise funds has been delayed in light of the country’s on-going political turmoil.

The company, which is majority owned by France Telecom currently lists just one per cent on the stock market. It had been expected to sell fresh shares to take its public shares up to 15 per cent of the total.

Following a protracted dispute with the previous co-owner, France Telecom now owns 94 per cent of Mobinil, while Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding retains a small five per cent stake.

The changes to the listing requirements for at least a 15 per cent stake to be floated were made by the stock exchange last year.

The company is also shortly to receive a licence to resell landline services provided by Telecom Egypt, but is also expected to face increased price competition when the landline operator launches its own MVNO.

South Africa’s second landline operator, Neotel is planning a launch of its own LTE network with a formal announcement expected to be made August 21.

The launch event comes just ahead of the company’s own deadline of launching its LTE network by September. Coverage is expected to be concentrated near the largest city of Johannesburg with 50 base stations and will be based on the company’s 1800MHz spectrum.

However, the Neotel is unlikely to shake up the other mobile networks too much as it is widely expected to be sold – with the buyer expected to be Vodacom.

Vodacom is said to be the last company running its eye over Neotel’s accounts after rival MTN dropped out of bidding.

The advantage for Vodacom apart from Neotel’s LTE network and radio spectrum would be access to a much larger landline network for backhaul and to cross sell to corporate users.

SingTel has raised its stake in Bharti Airtel after paying around S$383.6 million (US$302 million) for a further 3.62 per cent stake.

SingTel will pay the amount in cash to buy the additional equity stake in Bharti Telecom Ltd., which owns about 43.6 per cent of Bharti Airtel. Post the transaction, SingTel’s direct and indirect holding in Bharti Airtel will rise to 32.34 per cent from 30.76 per cent at present.

In a stock market filing, SingTel said that it bought the stake from MacRitchie Investments as part of its "strategic focus on maximising the value of its existing businesses."

MacRitchie Investments is a holding company owned by the Singapore government, which also owns a 51.9 per cent stake in SingTel. In essence, it’s a tidying up of the shareholder ownership.

SingTel said that the acquisition will not have a material impact on its earnings per share nor its net tangible assets per share for the current financial year ending March 31, 2014.

BlackBerry has announced that it is now looking at a possible sale of the company.

The board has formed a special committee to explore what it said are "strategic alternatives", which could include possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the company or other possible transactions.

A sale would likely be to private equity investors, and could involve a management buyout of the company.

The special committee of the board is comprised of Barbara Stymiest, Thorsten Heins, Richard Lynch and Bert Nordberg, and will be chaired by Timothy Dattels.

"We believe that now is the right time to explore strategic alternatives." said the committee’s chairman, Timothy Dattels.

Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry commented: "As the special committee focuses on exploring alternatives, we will be continuing with our strategy of reducing cost, driving efficiency and accelerating the deployment of BES 10."

The company currently has a market value of around US$5 billion and also has some US$3 billion in cash and equivalents.

JP Morgan Securities is serving as financial advisor to BlackBerry and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Torys are serving as legal advisors.

Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) reported a near 15 per cent fall in its second quarter sales of €2.76 billion (US$3.67 billion), although that was a slight improvement on the previous three months.

The decline in revenues was put down to divestments of businesses, as well as the exiting of certain customer contracts and countries. Excluding these two factors, sales declined by approximately 11 per cent due to reduced wireless infrastructure deployment activity, which affected both Mobile Broadband and Global Services.

Gross margin before specific items was 38.4 per cent in Q213, an improvement of 12.2 percentage points from Q212. The year-on-year improvement was primarily due to higher gross margin in both Mobile Broadband and Global Services.

The company recorded a net profit of €15 million, as compared to a loss of €260 million a year ago.

In Q213, Global Services represented 53 per cent of net sales, with Mobile Broadband representing 46 per cent of sales.

On a geographical basis, the year-on-year decline in net sales was primarily due to Asia, Middle East and Africa, Europe, and Latin America.

At the end of the second quarter 2013, NSN had approximately 50,500 employees, a reduction of approximately 12,900 over the past year.

NSN is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia after it bought out Siemens stake in the company.