Airtel Africa, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel is seeking to sell a minority of its stake in its mobile financial services platform, Airtel Money.
The London-listed company announced the move in their financial results for the period nine-month period ended 31 December 2020 saying its a bid to raise cash.
We are actively pursuing the sale of the remaining owned tower sites that sit across several operating countries. The group is in discussions with various potential investors concerning possible minority investments into Airtel Money. Discussions are ongoing between the parties, and there can be no certainty that a transaction will be concluded or as to the final terms of any transaction the firm says in a trading update.
Bharti Airtel Plc Expansion
Earlier last year, Airtel Kenya’s merger with Telkom failed. Since then, the company has invested alone on expanding its rural network to compete with market leader Safaricom. Airtel Africa CEO,Raghunath Mandava said “we are consistently gaining market share over the last few years, and are growing quite handsomely in Kenya on our own,”.
Raghunath Mandava also announced that Airtel Africa would not bid for licences in Ethiopia. He said the company has a lower market share in Nigeria, Congo, DRC, Tanzania and Kenya and is currently growing in these countries.
Airtel currently operates in 14 countries in Africa, including Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.
Airtel Plc Financial Results
The group reported a 13.8% increase in revenue to $2.87 billion, with third-quarter revenue up by 19.5%. It was primarily driven by 18.6% of underlying constant currency growth partially offset by currency devaluations.
The profit before tax slightly declined to $482 million in the period ended 31 December 2020 from $501 million in the same period in 2019. They attributed the drop to a combination of higher finance costs and benefits from non-operating exceptional items in the prior period.
Read also: Telkom Kenya Ditches Merger Plan with Airtel Kenya
