Vodacom acquired a 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt from the wider company after clearing regulatory and procedural hurdles, putting an end to the much-delayed sale which saw STC ending its interest two years prior.
In a statement, Vodacom detailed it expects to consolidate the Egypt unit into its financial statement over the remainder of its current financial year. The deal was announced in November last year for an equity consideration of ZAR48.1 billion (US$2.7 billion).
The deal went over the line through the issuing of new Vodacom Group shares and a cash consideration of around ZAR10.8 billion to Vodafone. As a result, Vodafone increased its shares in Vodacom from 60.5% to 65.1%.
Vodacom Group CEO 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.”
“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 cross-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 solutions."
Vodacom will post an update on its medium-term growth outlook in its next quarterly update, which will be published on January 31.
Vodacom came into the frame to acquire Vodafone Egypt after talks to sell to Saudi-based operator group STC ended in December 2020 after multiple setbacks. Sources speaking to Bloomberg claimed STC was seeking a cut price as the deadline for the deal was extended twice.
Vodacom’s pursuit of the Egypt unit was given shareholder approval in January with stakeholders massively in favour of the buyout.
