Indian billionaire and Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal is in Kenya after to sign the deal which will see Bharti Airtel Kenya merge with Helios owned Telkom Kenya.
According to sources in the know, Sunil arrived in Kenya on a private jet through JKIA and was quickly whisked into a meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta who also sneaked into Nairobi through the Madaraka SGR Train Service.
President Uhuru came back last night with police, special units and contractors providing coverage throughout the route while two choppers escorted the train to Nairobi from Mombasa.
The 61 year old Indian billionaire Sunil was in meetings with Telkom Kenya board and executives as well as senior government officials led by CS Joseph Mucheru the whole of today. The President joined the meetings much later on.
The group has been involved in meetings all day trying to sign the final of a deal which has been in the pipeline for some time.
According to sources with details from the meetings attended by the group, the deal will see Helios have a 40 per cent, government 10per cent and Bharti Airtel 50 per cent in a new company which might retain the Bharti Airtel brand and an Indian CEO.
Sunil was in neighbouring Tanzania where he had public meetings with President John Pombe Magufuli. It’s now clear that he decided to make the visit to Kenya top secret because of the business behind it.
Rais wa Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania Dkt. John Pombe Magufuli akiwa katika mazungumzo na mgeni wake Bw. Sunil Mittal Mwenyekiti wa Bharti Airtel aliyeambatana na ujumbe wake kutoka kampuni ya Simu ya Airtel pamoja na Waziri wa Katiba na Sheria Profesa Paramagamba John Kabudi pic.twitter.com/IVYeSk4SuI
— Lemutuz SuperBrand (@lemutuz) January 11, 2019
Telkom Kenya is the smallest in market share of the 3 mobile operators in Kenya with Safaricom leading and Bharti Airtel being second. Kenyan government owns 40 per cent of Telkom Kenya while Helios Investment partners owns 60 per cent.
Airtel Kenya almost exited the market in 2017 blaming Safaricom for using unfair market schemes to lock out competitors. It is rumoured that the talks of merger of Telkom Kenya and Bharti Airtel Kenya was mooted during the exit talks prompting Sunil to abandon thoughts of exiting the Kenyan market.
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