Blog Archive

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Celtel - The new Africa superbrand?

Well, it was started by Mohamed Ibrahim (Sudanese origin) but he sold it to MTC of Kuwait...

Anyway, it has been growing in leaps & bounds & recently attained control of V-Mobile (Nigeria) thus entering Africa's largest market.

Celtel is known is Kenya as the successor to the moribund KenCell. CelTel bought out Vivendi's 60% ownership in KenCell. Even more "celebrated" was the KES 2.0 Billion that Sameer Group (Naushad Merali's Holding Company) made on the flip. Merali used his pre-emptive Right to buy out Vivendi & flipped the 60% to Celtel. Celtel committed to investing additional funds into the Kenyan operations.

Following up on an earlier entry, Kenya needs to provide the base for a East African Internet Network by co-opting a major international player to develop Kenya's stranglehold on the region's need for speed.

How do we do that?