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Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator, has entered into exclusive talks with France's Orange to sell its subsidiaries in Africa.
According to a company statement, Orange and Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) have entered into an exclusive agreement “to explore the possible acquisition by Orange of Airtel’s subsidiaries in Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville and Sierra Leone”.
However, there is no certainty of any binding agreement as a result of these discussions.
Airtel has operations in 17 countries across Africa. It entered Africa in 2010 by acquiring Zain Telecom’s assets for $10.7 billion, one of the largest acquisitions by an Indian telecom company. Earlier this month, Airtel completed the sale of mobile towers in five African countries for $1.3 billion to cut its huge debt. It is in the process of selling its tower assets in six other African countries.
Besides, the company is divesting 15,000 towers to different companies in 13 countries in Africa.
For the quarter ended March 2015, Airtel’s revenues from Africa declined 13 per cent year-on-year, while net loss widened to $183 million.
Net debt at the end of FY15 stood at $10.67 billion.
