IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, along with co-investors Investec and FMO, announced a US$79 million equity investment in IHS Africa to help the company build and acquire mobile phone towers in sub-Saharan Africa.

IHS is the largest telecommunications infrastructure provider in West Africa with more than 2,700 towers under management, and is expanding its ownership and leasing operations throughout Africa.

IHS is currently working with many of the region’s operators to upgrade existing tower sites and facilitate the roll-out of technologies, including 3G and WiMAX.

Etisalat and Huawei today announced the signing of a commercial LTE contract to commence deployment of the region’s widest LTE network in the UAE. Nasser bin Obood acting CEO of Etisalat UAE, and Yi Xiang, president for Huawei Middle East, witnessed the signing ceremony at the Etisalat-Huawei Summit 2011 in Barcelona last week.

Etisalat has already tested and deployed LTE technology in the UAE.

Last week Etisalat also signed an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent for a planned deployment of LTE in the UAE, with a commercial launch commencing in the months to come.

Zain Group is reported to have rejected all three bids for its 25 per cent stake in its Saudi Arabian subsidiary, a requirement before the takeover bid by Etisalat can be ratified. The stake is currently valued at around US$750 million.

"The board met today and declined all three offers," a source, familiar with the discussions, told Reuters.

Etisalat’s US$12 billion takeover offer for Zain Group expires at the end of this month and was dependent on a deal to divest the Saudi assets due to competition issues in the country between Zain and Etisalat’s subsidiaries.

On February 20 Batelco announced that its offer for the 25 per cent had lapsed.

Batelco Group confirmed today that its offer to acquire Zain Group’s 25 per cent stake in Zain KSA expired.

“We believe the Batelco consortium presented a very fair and reasonable offer to Zain Group, stated Batelco Group CEO, Peter Kaliaropoulos.

“Our offer also involved a significant amount of new cash to be injected into Zain KSA as working capital to accelerate its growth in a highly competitive market. Ensuring that both Zain Group and Zain KSA appropriately benefit was at the core of our offer,” he added

“Negotiations were amicable but we did not reach a suitable deal,” he concluded.

China Mobile has stated it has signed a "strategic co-operation framework agreement" with Vodafone, without giving too much additional information. Vodafone currently owns a 3.2 per cent stake in China Mobile – but has spoken about disposing of the stake

According to the agreement, the two companies will continue their co-operation in areas including: exchange of corporate management, technical and operational expertise; enhanced roaming services; multinational customers; green technology; network roadmap management, joint innovation and R&D, and promotion of converged LTE technology, amongst other areas.

In 2008, China Mobile joined the LTE trials that were already being carried out by Vodafone and Verizon Wireless. A few months later, China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Vodafone also set up a Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) to promote the development of new mobile technologies, applications and services.