Airtel Africa trades 25% stake in mobile money arm to Mastercard for $100m. Even after selling 25% stake to the card issuing giants (Mastercard), they will continue to own majority stake. Airtel Africa, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel which is located in New Delhi, India was founded in 2010. Since entering into the African market, they have owned the space as one the leading telecommunications giants in Africa as they cover Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Kenya Uganda, Madagascar, Zambia, Rwanda, Chad, Niger, Gabon, Congo B, DRC, Seychelles, and Tanzania.
Speaking at the event, Mastercard also shared they increased its business agreements with Airtel Africa on card issuance, remittances, merchant acceptance, payment gateways and processing. This isn’t the first time these multinational companies are partnering together. Back in 2019, they collaborated together and even though this deal did not see the two exchange money, it resulted in 100 million Airtel subscribers gaining access to Mastercard’s global network.
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This sale is coming just less than a month after TPG’S global investing platform- The Rise Fund invested $200 million into the same parts of Airtel Africa’s business. This results in TPG’s Rise Fund owning 7.55% while Mastercard will own 3.775% stake.
What does this mean for Airtel Africa’s mobile money arm?
Due to these multi- million investments, the mobile money arm is valued to $2.65 billion. These guys are no rookies to this type of venture, just last month they sold their telecom towers to Madagascar and Malawi to Helios Towers for $119 million. They plan to use this money to reduce the company’s debt and invest in infrastructure and network. When speaking about the vision of the mobile money arm, they said they plan to list it as a separate business entity within the next four years.
These sales contributes to their goals which is to monetize the mobile money arm which they plan to do with a monthly investment up to 25% of the issued share capital of AMC BV.
