Zain deal likely by April-end, says Mittal

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal said on Friday that his company does not need any regulatory approvals from the country to acquire the African assets of the Kuwait-based Zain Telecom and expressed the hope that the deal would be concluded by the end of April.

"The deal is on fast track. My guess is that we should be able to close the deal by end of April", Mittal told a news channel. He also said Bharti is not seeking any government approval as it is not required in this case.

"We are only seeking blessings, no regulatory approval is needed for the deal in India. This is a much cleaner deal than MTN.. no dual listings; it has no complications as was in case of the MTN," Mittal said.

Bharti, which is in an exclusive discussion with Zain until 25 March to acquire its African assets, has already said the enterprise value of the deal is $10.7 billion.

Mittal said the funding plans are being worked out by his treasury team and StanChart will be the banker while there will be many regional bankers as well from West Asia.

Terming the deal as a much better one than what was being discussed with MTN, he said SingTel, the 32 per cent partner in Airtel, is in full support of the deal.