Safaricom has today announced that Vodafone Group has proposed to transfer its interest in the telco to South Africa based Vodacom which is its African subsidiary. Under the agreement, Vodafone will exchange a 35% indirect interest in Safaricom for new ordinary Vodacom shares and will continue to hold a 5% indirect interest in Safaricom. The Government of Kenya owns 35% while the general public own the rest of the shares. The transaction is reported worth USD 2.6 Billion.
Vodacom is 65% owned by Vodafone and has mobile network operations in South Africa, Lesotho, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. Vodacom also has a unit Vodacom Business Africa through which they offer business managed services to enterprises in over 30 countries across the continent.
Completion of the transaction is however subject to a number of conditions such as approvals from Vodacom minority shareholders, approval from the Financial Surveillance Department of the South African Reserve Bank and confirmation from the Kenya Capital Markets Authority that the Transaction does not trigger an obligation for Vodacom to make a mandatory bid for Safaricom.