Celtel agrees to 3.4 billion dollar offer from MTC Kuwait

Pan-African telecoms operator Celtel http://www.celtel.com has announced that it has agreed to a 3.4 billion dollar cash offer from the Kuwaiti telecoms operator Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC). As the Amsterdam-based company reports in a press release on its website, under the terms of the offer, MTC will acquire immediately 85 per cent of the issued capital of Celtel on closing and the remaining 15 per cent within two years. MTC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of 7 billion dollars, has operations in Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Bahrain, with 3.4 million managed customers in the region. The company recently announced increased profits for 2004, up 17.6 per cent on 2003 at 408 million dollars. http://www.celtel.com/en/news/press-release26/index.html