Bharti Airtel-MTN deal

Bharti Airtel and MTN are looking at ways to surmount at least three major obstacles, notably a demand for sweetened deal terms by the South African firm’s shareholders, which are holding up their $23-billion merger aimed at creating the world’s third-largest mobile operator, two persons with knowledge of the negotiations said. The two sides on Monday announced they had extended exclusive merger talks until August 31, confirming a July 22 ET report that they were set to extend the earlier July 31 deadline as several issues including the price and the structure of the alliance needed to be sorted out. The two persons, requesting anonymity, said the two-month-long talks were now revolving around demands by MTN’s minority shareholders, which want India’s top telco to hike the offer price by around 10%, increase the cash component of the deal by reducing the share of global depository receipts (GDRs) and bear the foreign exchange risk until the deal is completed.

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