Ethiopia awards telecom licence to Safaricom-led consortium aljazeera.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from aljazeera.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Safaricom takes 56pc stake in Ethiopia firm Business Daily Safaricom #ticker:SCOM has raised its controlling stake in Global Partnership for Ethiopia, the consortium that has made a bid for one of two telecoms licences in Kenya’s northern neighbour, to 56 percent from the 51 percent announced previously. Details of the consortium’s latest ownership structure was disclosed Tuesday by South Africa-based Vodacom Group which owns a 34.9 percent stake in the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm. “The consortium is 56 percent owned by Safaricom, six percent by Vodacom, 25 percent by Sumitomo the Japanese conglomerate and 10 percent by CDC, the UK sovereign investment fund,” Vodacom’s chief executive Shameel Joosub said at an investor briefing yesterday. He did not explain the circumstances that led to the changes in the ownership. The multinational’s stake has also gone up, having previously stood at five percent. The percentages listed by Mr Joosub exclu
BUILDING A DIGITAL ETHIOPIA - capital Newspaper capitalethiopia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capitalethiopia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Good morning ☀️ ️ For the first quarter of 2021, Amazon posted revenues of $108.5 billion. That s a revenue increase of 44% from the same period last year. In today s edition:
Nigeria s selling its power generating plants
BitPesa’s parent firm raises $50m
TC Insights
Africa’s last untapped telecoms market
In November 2020, the Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) officially opened the gates to bids from telecoms companies looking to snag two licences Ethiopia is offering. Ethiopia’s telecoms sector is a monopoly with the state-run Ethiotel facing no competition.
But last year, it made the first step to change that with plans to sell two telecoms licences. There’s clearly a big opportunity in Ethiopia as it is largely regarded as one of the largest untapped telecom markets on the continent.
Safaricom gets boost as top firms snub Ethiopia bid
Summary
The fact that only two bids were made has narrowed the agency’s options and the bidding process could be reopened, especially if the financial offers fall below the government’s targets.
While both Safaricom and MTN have substantial financial backing, they have emphasised that they will not overpay for the Ethiopian licences.
Wednesday April 28 2021
By VICTOR JUMA
Summary
The fact that only two bids were made has narrowed the agency’s options and the bidding process could be reopened, especially if the financial offers fall below the government’s targets.