MTNL is eyeing a 51% stake in Zimbabwe’s state-owned landline operator, TelOne, for an undisclosed sum. The funds will be routed through its Mauritius arm, Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius (MTML). The Zimbabwe government is keen to offload a 51% stake in TelOne, which is the country’s sole state-owned landline operator. Since TelOne also has a GSM mobile permit, it fits well with our plans to enter the African cellular turf in the near future.
TelOne was recently granted a GSM mobile permit and will be the fourth mobile operator in a market of some four million subscribers. Saddled with sizeable debt, TelOne is scouting for a strong overseas partner to enter the mobile turf. This will be MTNL’s second attempt to enter Africa — in 2006, the telco failed to bag a mobile licence in Kenya and a year later it lost out in its attempts to buy a controlling stake in Telkom Kenya.
