Vodafone pursues South African Vodacom

The battle to take over South African mobile operator Vodacom is hotting up, although lead bidder Vodafone remains unperturbed by new interest from Nigeria’s Globalcom.

Vodacom is a joint venture between Vodafone and South Africa’s leading fixed line provider, Telkom, with each owning 50% of the company.

Vodafone now wants to purchase a further 12.5% of the business from Telkom for $2.5 billion.

However, Telkom has now revealed that it has received interest from other unnamed parties in buying Vodacom.

Globalcom, the second largest mobile network provider in Nigeria, which also has networks in Benin Republic and Ghana, denies offering to buy Telkom’s stake in Vodacom.

Telkom says it has ignored the additional interest and is only in discussion with two parties, Vodafone and a Mvelaphanda-led consortium.

Earlier this year the consortium, a black empowerment group, offered to purchased Telkom’s fixed-line operations as long as Telkom sold its stake in Vodacom.

Vodafone has recently been looking to expand in emerging markets to combat languid growth in the Western mobile sector. Last month Vodafone completed a deal to take control of Ghana Telecom.