Reuters Africa

Zimbabwe's largest mobile telephony company, Econet Wireless, reported a 16 percent drop in full-year net profit, pulled lower by growing financing costs.

Econet Wireless said net profit fell to $140 million in the year ended in February from $165.7 million a year earlier. Revenue grew 14 percent to $695 million.

The company concluded a $307 million syndicated loan during the year that increased interest charges and ate into the company's profitability, Chief Executive Douglas Mboweni told reporters.

Etisalat's Nigeria affilate has signed a $1.2 billion loan with 13 Nigerian banks, the United Arab Emirates' No.1 telecom operator said on Tuesday.

The medium-term facility will be used to refinance an existing $650 million loan and bolster Etisalat Nigeria's network, Etisalat said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse.

Etisalat owns a 40 percent stake in its Nigeria affiliate, which is formally known as Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services Ltd (EMTS).

EMTS will acccount for 3.7 percent of Etisalat's revenue in 2013, HSBC forecasts in a research note.

South Africa's Allied Electronics (Altron) said on Friday it had made a firm offer to acquire all of the share capital in Allied Technologies Limited (Altech) it does not already own.

Altron said in a statement it would make a cash offer of 47.50 rand a share, driving Altech's share price up more than 30 percent to 45 rand.

Altron said the proposed transaction would simplify the group's corporate and operating structure and “create a single listed point of entry into the Altron Group.”

MTN's Uganda unit is considering buying rival local telecom firms following the agreed merger of the country's No.2 and No.3 operators, its chairman said on Wednesday.

Uganda has eight mobile companies serving its 34.5 million people and call tariffs have fallen by about 40 percent since 2010, data from the Uganda Communications Commission shows, as operators embarked on a price war to woo customers.

Kenya Data Networks (KDN), a subsidiary of Mauritius-based Liquid Telecom Group, has deployed fibre-optic networks in Tanzania, extending connectivity to the East African capitals of Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Kigali via a single optical fibre network. In a press release, KDN said that the latest extension spans 120km, and runs from the capital Nairobi to the town of Namanga on the Kenya-Tanzania border.

Abu Dhabi telecom group Etisalat is set to sign an $8 billion loan facility next week with as many as 16 banks to help fund its Maroc Telecom stake bid, bankers said.

The availability of credit highlights demand for high-quality Gulf names in the loan market, bankers said, while also advancing Etisalat's attempts to secure an asset whose sale is seen as a vital part of a restructuring at French group Vivendi, owner of the Maroc Telecom stake.

The Libyan government has put a halt to a process to award a management contract for its state-owned telecoms network, the Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Co (LIPTIC).

Citing Etisalat's CEO, Ahmad Julfar the Reuters news agency reported that the tender had been put on by the government for unspecified reasons.

Etisalat had been one of the companies bidding in the tender.

South Sudan, one of the world's least developed countries, aims to lay a fibre-optic network this year to link the capital Juba with submarine cables in east Africa to cut the high cost of using the Internet, a senior official said on Tuesday.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011, six years after a peace accord that ended decades of civil war that left the country's infrastructure in ruins. It has no landline phone lines and only 300 km (186 miles) of roads.

A shortage of foreign currency and a variation in exchange rates, alongside rising competition and an increase in taxes, are having a negative impact on Sudan’s telecoms industry, according to a report by Reuters.

Econet Wireless is seeking at least $3.1 billion in damages from Bharti Airtel in a dispute over ownership of its subsidiary Airtel Nigeria, according to a suit filed on Wednesday.

The move follows a Nigerian court ruling on January 30 that Bharti Airtel's ownership of its subsidiary Airtel Nigeria is "null and void" because co-founder and 5 percent shareholder Econet was not consulted on the transfer.

South Africa-based Econet Wireless is disputing the Indian company's ownership of one of its top Africa operations.