India's largest private telecom company Bharti Airtel is believed to have held discussions to rope in Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel), which directly and indirectly holds 30.5 per cent in the company, to bid for South African telecom major MTN Group.
MTN's largest shareholder with 23 per cent is the Alpine Trust, which is controlled, in turn, by two shareholders that have pooled their shares in the trust.One is Newshelf664, a company floated by MTN staff and management and the other is M1, controlled by the Makati family. The other major shareholder is PIC, a South African government-owned pension fund, which has 13.5 per cent. The rest of the shareholding is widely dispersed.MTN is listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange.
An initial entry in the company might be through the buyout of the Alpine Trust stake. Alpine has a market capitalisation of around $33 billion. If Bharti considers buying 51 per cent, the bill will be over $20 billion (Rs 80,000 crore).Goldman Sachs is believed to have agreed to provide debt of up to $12 billion, while the remaining will be taken care of by Stanchart by issuing Bharti's equity to MTN shareholders.
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