Thursday, October 20, 2005

Africa's MTN buys stake in Iran cell firm

A Bloomberg newswire article, via The International Herald Tribune, reports that:

MTN Group, in its first expansion outside Africa, said Wednesday that it had bought a 49 percent stake in the No. 2 Iranian mobile phone company, replacing Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri.

The Iranian government last year chose Turkcell over MTN in bidding for 70 percent of the cellphone company, IranCell. Iran ruled in February that a foreign company could hold no more than 49 percent of the new company. Then, in June, Iran broke off talks with Turkcell in favor of MTN. No reasons were given.

IranCell last year won a tender to become the country's second mobile operator as the state monopoly of the telecommunications industry ended. MTN did not specify how much it paid for the stake in IranCell.

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