Orange pushed further ahead with the development of its Middle East and Africa business late last week with the acquisition of an additional stake in Morocco’s Meditel.
The French telco bought a 9% stake in Meditel, raising its holding to 49%. Meditel will now be fully consolidated into Orange’s financial results.
In addition, Orange will have the right to nominate five of Meditel’s nine-member board of directors.
The move is in line with the shareholder agreement it signed with Fipar-Holding – a subsidiary of the Moroccan Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion group – and FinanceCom in 2010.
Under the deal, Orange paid €640 million for a 40% stake in Meditel and agreed to raise its holding to 45% in 2011 and 49% in 2015.
Then backed by a consortium led by Spain’s Telefonica and Portugal Telecom, Meditel was created in 1999 as Morocco’s second mobile operator in competition with incumbent Maroc Telecom.
According to Orange, it had 13 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2014, giving it a market share of 31%. It aims to build out its mobile network to extend 3G coverage to 95% of the population by the end of this year, and last month it launched 4G services.
Morocco’s Agence Nationale de Réglementation des Télécommunications (ANRT) awarded 4G licences to Maroc Telecom, Meditel and Inwi in March. Inwi became Morocco’s third mobile operator when it launched services in 2010 and, according to the regulator, had built up a market share of 27.9% by the end of last year.
Meditel, meanwhile, generated revenues of €503 million last year and EBITDA of €170 million, Orange said.
"The transaction, which has already received the necessary authorisations from the public authorities and the regulator, illustrates Orange’s development strategy outside Europe and supports the group’s ambition to reinforce its presence in Africa and [the] Middle East," the telco added.
Orange earlier this month split out its Africa and Middle East operations into a separate legal entity designed to act as a platform for growth in the region.
