Investment

A leading Israeli colocation data centre infrastructure provider has attracted the attention of one of the world’s biggest and best-known private investment firms.

Google is set to take a 1.2% stake in Indian operator Bharti Airtel via an equity share issue after the move was cleared by the Indian firm’s directors.

Mexican regulator IFT (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones / Federal Telecommunications Institute) has cleared a financing deal that will see ALTAN Redes (Red Compartida) become a public-private partnership funded by the Mexican Development Bank.

There’s good news for telecommunications companies in, or serving, India with the announcement by the Department of Telecommunications of additions to the area of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme relevant to telecoms and networking.

Pakistan’s digital economy received a boost this week with news of a major investment in the country’s e-commerce sector.

SoftBank Corp, a leading Japanese communication and information technology service provider, says it has secured an equity stake in German company 1NCE, described as the only provider of connectivity and software for IoT at a global flat rate. It has also signed an exclusive distribution deal covering the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Google has backed India's ShareChat social media platform in a major funding round that implies a $5 billion valuation of the company – up from a previous valuation of $3.7 billion.

Leading Kenyan operator Safaricom is reportedly planning to raise up to $2 billion from local banks and development finance institutions over the next five years to fund its new Safaricom Ethiopia operation. Part of the proposed funding will also be raised internally and through rental financing from equipment vendors.

A deal that has the potential to be one of the largest foreign investments in the data centre sector in Indonesia, carrying an estimated enterprise value of US$300 million, has just been announced.

International semiconductor consortium ISMC, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based fund manager Next Orbit Ventures and Israel's Tower Semiconductor, a leading foundry in high-value analogue semiconductor solutions, reportedly plans to invest $3 billion in India's southern Karnataka state to set up a chip-making plant.

Operator Vodacom Tanzania has reportedly signed a contract with the country’s National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) – the government-owned fibre optic cable infrastructure system.

After last year’s announcement of plans for a scheme to support drone manufacture, five drone manufacturers and nine drone component manufacturers have now been selected as initial beneficiaries of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost drone manufacturing in India, the aviation ministry has announced.

Chile’s Entel has pledged to invest more than US$665 million throughout 2022 into its operations across Chile and Peru.

A major deal, through which digital infrastructure company Equinix is to acquire West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider MainOne for an enterprise value of US$320 million, is now complete.

Indian operator Bharti Airtel has bought from the UK’s Vodafone Group a 4.7% stake in Indus Towers, paying Rs2,388 crore for the stake – that’s about US$315.8 million. Airtel now owns 46.43% of Indus. Vodafone’s stake is now 21%, though it reportedly plans to sell this too.

Vodacom, a South African mobile communications company, has announced a further roll-out of network equipment into the poorest region of the southernmost country of the African continent as part of its pledge to create an inclusive digital society in the country.

The pan-African operator Airtel Africa, a division of India’s Bharti Airtel, is reportedly planning to raise $194 million via debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the World Bank.

The African Union and the European Union have announce plans to step up digital cooperation for sustainable development in Africa following the first Africa-Europe Digital for Development (D4D) Hub Multi-Stakeholder Forum, which took place virtually on 18 March 2022, under the theme Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development in Africa.

Could established brands be keen customers for a white-label, fully-customizable solution that would turn them into telecom carriers? OXIO, the first telecom-as-a-service platform for brands and enterprises, is hoping so after it raised $40 million in Series B funding. Among the markets it is targeting is Latin America.

Africa’s largest telecom group MTN SA has announced a further investment of $46.4-million (ZAR 700-million) in order to modernise existing, and deploy new, network infrastructure across the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in South Africa.

Hard on the heels of its announcement that it intends to sell off its data centre business, Chilean operator Entel is back in the news with plans to sell its fibre optic network – for which expressions of interest have already apparently been received from third parties.

The Competition and Consumer Authority of Botswana has announced its unconditional approval for the acquisition of 100% of Broadband Botswana Internet (BBi) by the Botswanan arm of South Africa’s Paratus Telecommunications Ltd.

Shareholders of Indian multinational telecommunications services company Bharti Airtel have given their nod to the issue of equity shares by the firm to Google on “a preferential basis” following the tech giant’s recent acquisition of a 1.28% stake in the telco for USD 700 million.

PAIX Data Centres, a Pan-African provider of cloud-and carrier-neutral colocation data centre services, has announced the first stage of a major investment that will be used to fund the company’s data centre capacity expansion and growth plans into new African data centre markets.

There’s been a shift in ownership of the dominant telecoms player in the West African island country of Sao Tome and Principe.

Saudi operator Zain KSA approved a Public Investment Fund (PIF)-led consortium offer to acquire an 80% majority stake in its 8,069-tower infrastructure for SAR3 billion ($807 million).

At its 2022 Virtual Investor Day Millicom, a provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications services dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America operating under the Tigo brand, has made some key investment announcements.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets, has announced that it has invested in a maiden bond issuance by pan-African telecommunications services provider Axian Telecom.