MTC Group, the leading mobile operator in the Middle East and Africa with the 5th largest geographic footprint in the world, participated at the 2nd Annual Mergers and Acquisitions Forum held in Dubai between the 18th-19th of September 2006. The two day event was attended by CEOs, CFOs and COOs of major businesses in the region. MTC Group’s successful track record over the past 4 years in Mergers & Acquisitions activities has made it a key contributor to this event and the Mobile Telecommunications operator of choice in sharing its experience at the forum. In the last 4 years, MTC has grown from a one country operator in Kuwait to a multinational telecommunications operator with presence in 20 countries and total of 23 million subscribers. MTC’s largest acquisition to date, one of the largest in the Middle East and Africa, was the $3.4 billion acquisition of Celtel International the leading mobile operator in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2005, MTC has also concluded record deals acquiring 61% of Mobitel in Sudan, majority equity stake in Madacom in Madagascar and more recently 65% of VMobile in Nigeria. MTC recently signed a $4 billion syndication credit facility deal, underwritten by 4 international banks to fund its expansion and corporate strategy.
In line with its expansion plans, MTC is transforming itself into a global player with greater appeal to stakeholders, capital markets and customers, by launching initiatives on corporate governance and social responsibility, products & services alignment, technology and business operations harmonization. Dr. Saad Al Barrak Chief Executive Officer of MTC Group commented, “As MTC strives to become a truly global company, we are continually embarking upon initiatives to ensure the alignment of our products and services to offer a common value proposition and the same rich user experience to all customers, friendly and culturally attuned and true value adding solutions to make the lives of our customers better wherever they may be. This represents one of the fundamental steps in our drive to achieve greater integration between our operations worldwide.”
Dr. Andrew Arowojolu, Senior Advisor in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department at MTC Group will be speaking at the Forum on the topic of Integrating the product portfolios of different entities to unify the value proposition. Arowojolu stated, “The most successful acquisitions and mergers are those who, early on, adopt a clear strategy for the post-acquisition integration of the acquirer and target human resources, product lines, intangible assets such as brand images and suppliers to leverage economies of scale. Generally, our acquisitions involve targets in countries where we are yet to operate. Integration requires a thorough understanding of market dynamics in each new country to identify which services and products offer more value to that specific market and which will not have a negative impact on the bottom line.”
About MTC
MTC is the pioneer of mobile telecommunications in the Middle East and now a major player on the African continent. We began life in 1983 in Kuwait as the region’s first mobile operator, and since the initiation of our “3x3x3” expansion strategy in 2002, we have expanded rapidly.
As a leading mobile and data services operator in 6 Middle Eastern and 14 sub-Saharan African countries with 9000 employees, we provide a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to over 23 million individual and business customers.
We operate in Kuwait and Bahrain as mtc-vodafone, in Jordan as Fastlink, in Iraq as mtc atheer, in Lebanon as mtc touch, in Sudan as Mobitel and in 14 sub-Saharan countries in Africa as Celtel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nigeria.
Listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Code; Tele), MTC’s market capitalization exceeded US12.9 billion as of August 1st 2006. For more visit: www.mtctelecom.com
