Telecom Privatisation Pushes Forward

Jun 14 , 2021



The government has announced the call for an expression for interest (EOI) for the partial privatisation of Ethio telecom.

The EOI is open for a month and interested bidders are expected to present three-year audit reports before the deadline on July 14, 2021, along with other documents.

"We expect a lot of bidders will be interested," said Brook Taye (PhD), senior advisor to the Ministry of Finance.

Since last year, Deloitte has been acting as a transaction adviser for the privatisation process, through which a 40pc stake in the state-owned telecom operator will be availed to foreign investors and five percent will be sold to domestic investors.

“The task ahead now is to float the 40pc share, we’ll go ahead with five percent later on,” said Brook.

A regulation approved by the Council of Ministers earlier this year raised Ethio telecom’s authorised capital by ten-fold to 400 billion Br. Though the company is currently the sole telecom service provider in the country, it will soon be joined by a consortium led by Safaricom, which secured an operational license for 850 million dollars a few weeks ago.

The consortium will not be allowed to bid for the 40pc stake.





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