According to NewsDay, the deal is awaiting approval from Zimbabwe’s Competition and Tariff Commissions (CTC). In addition, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Competition Commission (Comesa) has written to the CTC to investigate the transaction.
In a statement the CTC said: “The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Competition Commission has received a notification in terms of article 24 of the Comesa competition regulations involving the merger between Liquid Telecommunication Holdings Limited and CEC Liquid Telecommunication Limited (CLT), and its subsidiary Hai Telecommunications Limited (Hai).”
LTHL entered into a joint venture agreement with the Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) in March 2011. Under this agreement, the CEC together with LTHL own and control 50% each of CEC Liquid Telecommunications, a Zambian data and IP provider. CLT also holds 99.99% of the allotted and issued shares in Hai.
Speaking to NewsDay, Wellington Makamure, managing director of Liquid Telecoms Zimbabwe confirmed that Hai is now part of the group.
“Hai Telecommunications are already part of the Liquid Telecoms,” he said.
Newsday also confirms that it has seen details of the transaction with LTHL prepared to buy all of CEC’s 10,000 shares of Hai for one kwacha ($0.99) each. The documents shown to NewsDay, also state that CLT has constructed a fibre-optic network in the centre of Zambia and has created two international links to Zimbabwe.
The deal is due to close sometime during this quarter subject to various conditions including merger approval.
Capacity recently spoke to Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecoms Group, about the company’s agreement with Telecom Egypt that will allow the pan-African operator to complete a terrestrial fibre network that stretches from Cape Town in South Africa all the way to Cairo in Egypt.
“We’ve been working on it, expanding our network and we’re really excited that it’s now reached fruition,” said Rudnick. “It’s an historic moment that we can say that there is a single fibre network that you can terrestrially run from Cape Town to Cairo.”
