Etisalat looks to consolidate assets in Africa ahead of Maroc Telecom acquisition

Etisalat has started a tidying up exercise of its African assets ahead of its planned acquisition of a majority stake in Maroc Telecom.

As part of the plans, Maroc Telecom is paying US$650 million to buy Etisalat’s existing stakes in a number of African mobile networks. Etisalat will then purchase a 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom, so the net effect is negligible, but it does combine the two companies’ respective African networks into a single holding company.

Etisalat has subsidiaries in Benin, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Niger and Togo while Maroc Telecom has operations in Gabon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali.

The sale of the Etisalat networks to Maroc Telecom is conditional on the sale of Maroc Telecom to Etisalat completing.