MTN and Orascom

No time for Freedom day at Bloomberg, Vernon Wessels and two others working on the story yesterday, MTN and Orascom and speaking as ever to "sources close to the deal". And "people familiar with the deal", the biggest leaky ships in any deal, folks who just can't keep secrets. So the announcement that we eagerly await would probably talk about specific assets in the Orascom stable. Good thing we are not that good at football anymore, some of the core disputes between Algeria and Egypt are around "that" match where Algeria qualified ahead of Egypt for the looming World Cup here. Not the first time that the two have fought over football. Egypt recalled their ambassador to Algeria, Egypt extracted their revenge by trouncing Algeria in the African cup of nations.



Check out the appetiser from Bloomberg yesterday, titled Orascom Talks With MTN Said to Be Advanced as Deal Hurdles Loom. As you can see there is another crowd that is talking to Orascom, a European company that is involved in emerging markets. Oh, and for the record, my mother is born in Algeria, not that it matters, but I thought you might like to know.



The confirmation has come in, post these above paragraphs. Like it or hate it when that happens. Here goes from the MTN release Further to the cautionary announcement released on the Securities Exchange News Service ("SENS") on 23 April 2010, MTN shareholders are informed that MTN is in discussions with Orascom Telecom's parent company, Weather Investments S.p.A, which may or may not lead to a transaction relating to the acquisition by MTN of control of Orascom Telecom and/or certain of its businesses. MTN shareholders are advised to continue to exercise caution in trading in their MTN securities until such time as a further announcement is made. OK, so that about tells us everything that we think we know already. At least there is confirmation that the parties are talking.