Safaricom, Airtel bid for Essar's Kenya assets seen finalised soon

Kenya's regulator said on Wednesday that it had given preliminary approval to a joint bid by Safaricom and Airtel for the mobile assets of Essar Kenya and the final nod could be given next month.

The two firms lodged a joint bid valued at $100 million to buy the assets of Essar Kenya, which operates under the "Yu" brand in the east African nation, in February this year.

The director general of the regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), Francis Wangusi, told a news conference that the whole project is at an advanced stage.

He said CAK and the competition authority approved the deal but needed to wait until the end of the month for other parties to raise any objections, in line with legal requirements, to give their final agreement, adding that it could happen next month.

Safaricom, which has a 68 percent share of Kenya's 31 million mobile phone users, will get Yu's network infrastructure and spectrum. Airtel will take Yu's 2.6 million subscribers.