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India’s Bharti Airtel has explained to analysts how it plans to fund the proposed $10.7 billion acquisition of Zain’s African networks excluding Morocco and Sudan, reports India’s Economic Times.
Apparently, the operator is doing the explanation to quell investor fears that it will struggle to make the deal. The idea is fund the purchase from medium-term debt — i.e. loans with maturity periods between 1 and 10 years.
Akhil Gupta, group deputy CEO and MD of Bharti Enterprises, said: “If we close the deal with full debt, it will still be at a sensible level, but we are debt-averse and will use a combination of free cash flow and equity to repay debt. There will be impact on earnings in the short-to-medium term when you look for growth stories like this. Earnings per share should take a backseat for some time.”
He went on to add that Bharti is also looking at the possibility of raising more equity via Airtel itself or Infratel, its telecom infrastructure arm.
A final deal is expected to be made by end-April or mid-May.
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]
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Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
