Telecom Egypt announces the conclusion of the acquisition of Middle East and North Africa Submarine Cable (MENA Cable) from Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) through its subsidiary Egyptian International Submarine Cable Company (EISCC). As previously announced, the total enterprise value of MENA Cable is $90m, of which $40m represents the equity value of the MENA Cable and the remainder its outstanding debt. Notably, EFG Hermes acted as the brokerage company for executing the transaction on Telecom Egypt’s side.
Ahmed El Beheiry, managing director and chief executive officer, said he was very pleased with the closing of this transaction that will add the MENA Cable to their international cables network, in line with the company’s strategy to expand its international connectivity to enable Egypt’s vision of becoming a digital route.
He added that the decision to acquire the MENA Cable is a result of the vision to achieve a short-term return from this transaction capitalising on the growing data demand from India.
Telecom Egypt had announced in August the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Airtel, wherein, Telecom Egypt will bundle MENA’s assets with existing assets of the TE network.
Airtel will be granted IRUs (indefeasible right of use) on MENA Cable and TE North cable systems, as well as large capacities on a long-term basis on two new cable systems (SMW5 & AAE1).
“We expect to formalise the partnership with Airtel into an agreement soon, which will enable Telecom Egypt to recover all of its investment in the MENA Cable,” El-Behiry said.
