France Telecom-Orange (FT-Orange) has belatedly confirmed that it has acquired the 11% stake in Telkom Kenya (Orange) held by Dubai-based private equity firm Alcazar Capital. Business Daily Africa reports that FT-Orange has also taken steps to replace Alcazar’s CEO Charbel Jaoude, on the Telkom board. The amount paid to Alcazar has not been disclosed, but it is believed that the transaction took place in mid-2012. Previously, in November last year the French telco converted its Telkom Kenya debt into equity, cutting the government’s stake in the firm by nine percentage points, in the process. As a result of the two agreements the French firm now has a controlling 60% stake in Telkom.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, in November 2007 FT-Orange was named as the winning bidder for a 51% stake in state-owned Telkom. FT acquired the stake as part of a 78.5%/21.5% consortium with Alcazar, which was known as Orange East Africa (OrEA). The consortium’s offer of USD390 million comfortably eclipsed the USD300 million reserve price and the transaction closed the following month.