Zain consortium will not sell Africa assets

The consortium which struck a deal on Tuesday to buy a 46 per cent stake in Kuwaiti telecoms firm Zain will not sell its African assets, a Vavasi official said.

Farid Arifuddin, managing director of Vavasi Telegence, which is part of India's Vavasi Group, said the new shareholders did not plan to offload the African operations.

"Our plan is to consolidate networks further and roll out larger networks and cover greater markets... It's not to sell for sure," he said at a news conference.

Zain had said it was in talks to sell its African assets – excluding Morocco and Sudan – after French media and telecoms conglomerate Vivendi broke off talks on buying the operations.

India's Reliance Communications, the country's No 2 mobile operator, was said to be in talks for the assets.