GHANA/SINGAPORE: Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's largest telecommunications firm, plans to bid for a majority stake in state-owned Ghana Telecom

Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's largest telecommunications firm, plans to bid for a majority stake in state-owned Ghana Telecom, in a deal likely to be over 500 million US dollars. Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's largest telecommunications firm, plans to bid for a majority stake in state-owned Ghana Telecom, in a deal likely to be over 500 million US dollars, banking sources told Reuters. An acquisition in Africa would take SingTel beyond its traditional footprint in Asia Pacific where it has spent 18 billion Singapore dollars (12.30 billion US ) in recent years, buying operators in high-growth Asian nations, and in the bigger Australian market. One source said the auction would be for at least a 51-percent stake or as much as 66 percent in the company valued at around a billion US dollars. The sources said SingTel would be competing for the stake with French telecom giant France Telecom and Portugal Telecom. Local telecom companies in Ghana include payphone operator WESTEL, and mobile operators SCANCOM Ltd, Mobitel and KASAPA. Ghana Telecom's mobile phone services arm, Onetouch, is the country's second-largest after SCANCOM. Ghana is considered to be one of the fastest growing sub-Saharan economies with its Gross Domestic Product growing at about 6 percent in 2006 and the government aiming for 6.5 percent growth in 2007. The country of 20 million people at the end of June 2007 had a total of 7 million telephone subscribers. Faced with a saturated home market, SingTel has been tapping into the fast growth in low-penetration countries across Asia and now derives about 75 percent of sales from operations outside Singapore. SingTel owns Australia's No. 2 phone operator Optus and large stakes in five Asian mobile operators: Thailand's Advanced Info Service Plc. (AIS), India's Bharti Group, Globe Telecom Inc. in the Philippines, Indonesia's PT Telkomsel and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd. It recently bought a 30 percent stake in Pakistan's No.3 mobile phone operator Warid Telecom.

ITN Source | October 16, 2007

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