Bharti Raises USD8.3Billion For Zain Stake

India's Bharti Airtel has announced that it has raised funding totaling USD8.3 billion for its proposed acquisition of the African assets of Kuwaiti telecoms group Zain, according to Bloomberg Business Week.
Bharti will receive USD7.5 billion via loans from a group of banks led by Standard Chartered and Barclays, and the development comes hot on the heels of reports that Bharti's board had approved the planned purchase earlier this week. Exclusive negotiations between Zain and Bharti are scheduled to conclude by 25 March.

Safaricom Plans to Borrow R 1.2 billion

Kenya's biggest mobile operator wants to borrow between up to R 1.2 billion. It has picked Barclays Capital, Absa Bank and Stanbic to arrange the issue.

Safaricom, which is partially held by Britain's Vodafone has had to contend with falling revenue per user as it has entered a price war with rivals such as France's Orange and Kuwait's Zain.

Barclays Bank Kenya has already launched a 5 billion shillings seven-year bond to support long-term lending.

Investors gave it 3 billion shillings in