Vodacom Group (Vodacom) has announced that its
purchase of a 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt from Vodafone Group has cleared all
outstanding regulatory and procedural hurdles, making the deal unconditional
and officially completed.
A statement issued on Vodacom's official
website on Tuesday reveals that Vodacom expects to consolidate Vodafone Egypt
into its financial statements over the remainder of the financial year.
In November last year, according to the
statement, Vodacom announced an agreement to acquire 55% of Vodafone Egypt for
an equity consideration of circa R48.1 billion (US$2.738 billion), which has
now been successfully settled through the issuance of 241 976 243 new Vodacom
Group shares and a cash consideration of circa R 10.8 billion. As a result, Vodacom Group’s shareholding in
Vodacom increased from, 60.5% to 65.1%.
Commenting on the development, the Chief
Executive Officer of Vodacom Group, Shameel Joosub said “This is an important
milestone for Vodacom Group as it will cement our position as a leading
pan-African technology company in addition to diversifying and accelerating our
growth profile. We are ideally positioned to partner with Vodafone Egypt to
unlock the massive addressable market opportunity in Egypt, supporting and
accelerating financial and digital inclusion.”
The acquisition of Vodafone Egypt, one of Africa’s
premier telecom operators, the statement further noted, is a
unique opportunity to advance Vodacom’s strategic connectivity and
financial ambitions. Vodafone Egypt is a clear market leader, strategically
positioned to capture growth in a fast-growing Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) market. Vodafone Egypt recently delivered strong interim
results with local currency service revenue growth of 18.6%.
“In addition to being an attractive asset on a standalone basis,
we will seek to leverage our financial services product roadmap, including our
super-app approach, to accelerate Vodafone Egypt’s financial services
opportunity. We also see upside from across pollination between Vodafone
Egypt’s software factory and our big data capabilities and closer cooperation
between both companies by scaling pan-African enterprise and IoT solution,”
Joosub added.
By: Kanto Okanta
