Telecommunications giant Vodacom Group has completed the acquisition of a 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt from Vodafone Group.

The deal became unconditional and officially completed after Vodacom concluded all outstanding regulatory and procedural requirements.

This followed Vodacom’s agreement in November 2021 to acquire 55% of Vodafone Egypt for an equity consideration of about R48.1-billion, which has now been successfully settled through the issuance of just over 241.97-million new Vodacom Group shares and a cash consideration of about R10.8-billion.

This resulted in Vodafone’s shareholding in Vodacom increasing from 60.5% to 65.1%.

“This is an important milestone for Vodacom Group as it will cement our position as a leading pan African technology company in addition to diversifying and accelerating our growth profile. We are ideally positioned to partner with Vodafone Egypt to unlock the massive addressable market opportunity in Egypt, supporting and accelerating financial and digital inclusion,” says Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub.

The acquisition presents Vodacom Group with a unique opportunity to advance its strategic connectivity and financial services ambitions, as Vodafone Egypt is a clear market leader, strategically positioned to capture growth in a fast-growing information and communications technology market.

“In addition to being an attractive asset on a standalone basis, we will seek to leverage our financial services product roadmap, including our superapp approach, to accelerate Vodafone Egypt’s financial services opportunity. We also see upside from cross pollination between Vodafone Egypt’s software factory and our big data capabilities and closer cooperation between both companies by scaling pan-African enterprise and Internet of Things solutions,” he continues.

Vodacom expects to consolidate Vodafone Egypt, which recently delivered strong interim results with local currency service revenue growth of 18.6%, into its financial statements over the remainder of the financial year.

Vodacom will provide an update on its medium-term growth outlook with its next quarterly trading update to be published on January 31.