Sources within the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance have revealed that Vodafone is set to acquire Ghana Telecom (GT) for US$960 million. The deal, which has yet to be announced, will see 66.7 per cent of the shares of the state-owned telco transferred over to Vodafone within the next few days.
However, Vodafone, which had established itself as the single bidder for GT, will face strong competition from the other mobile operators within Ghana. The overall penetration level is approaching 33 per cent (eight million in total), being split across MTN with 53 per cent, Tigo with 26.7 per cent, Ghana Telecom with 16.8 per cent, Kasapa Telecom with 3.5 per cent and Westel still in start-up mode.
The privatisation of GT has been an uneven road for potential acquirers with France Telecom originally being told it had won the bidding--beating Vodacom and Portugal Telecom. But the deal collapsed after the Ghanaian government stepped in asking for a new price of US$1 billion.
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