Bharti Airtel Announces Plans to Exit Ghana, Sell Stake to Government

Bharti  Airtel has announced its plan to exit Ghana and sell its 49.95% stake in its joint venture telco in the country to the government. It made this announcement in a recent stock market filing.

“Airtel is voluntarily taking an impairment charge of [₹184.1 crore],” the company said.

The telco has been doing business in Ghana under the brand name AirtelTigo, in partnership with Luxembourg-headquartered Millicom.

The telco’s board approved the transaction, “along with all customers, assets, and agreed liabilities,” Airtel said in its filing.

As of March 2020, AirtelTigo had a 15.81% market share of voice subscribers, and a 20.25% share in data subscribers, according to data published by the country’s National Communications Authority.

Over half the market share is with MTN Ghana, a subsidiary of the South African telco MTN.

AirtelTigo’s website still sports the Airtel branding, and it’s not clear if that will remain.

There is precedent for this — after Airtel scaled down its ownership of its business in Bangladesh, the brand continued under Robi, another telco, even as Airtel was just a minority shareholder.