Airtel Kenya-Telkom planned merger under a cloud

Kolkata: The planned merger of Bharti Airtel’s Kenyan unit with the partly state-owned Telkom Kenya has got stalled with the east African nation’s anti-corruption commission suspending the deal amid an ongoing probe into allegations of misappropriation of public funds at Telkom.

Back in February, Bharti Airtel had said its unit Airtel Networks Kenya and Telkom Kenya had inked a pact to merge operations that would enable the Sunil Mittal-led telco to effectively combat Safaricom, the telecom market leader in the east African country.

But global newswires reported Wednesday that the planned merger had been put on hold as Kenya’s Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is reportedly “investigating into allegations of misappropriation, recapitalisation and restructuring of balance sheets of Telkom Kenya”.