Bharti Airtel has entered into exclusive talks with Orange to sell its businesses in four African countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville and Sierra Leone. In February, Bloomberg had reported that Orange was looking to buy some of Airtel's businesses in Africa. A day later, an Economic Times story quoted an unnamed Bharti Airtel spokesperson as saying that "We strongly deny these rumours, which are completely baseless." A lot can change in five months. Some things to note: - There is some history between the two companies: In March, Airtel and Orange struck a deal in Africa to allow Orange customers in Côte d’Ivoire to send money to customers of Airtel Money in Burkina Faso, and vice versa, owing to the interconnection between the two operators’ mobile money platforms. Airtel has a similar deal with MTN between the same two countries. - Orange is a French telecom operator, and French is the official language of three of the four countries being discussed: Burkina Faso, Chad and Congo Brazzaville. The official language of Sierra Leone is English. - Orange has 13.3 mobile money customers 13 countries in Africa and the Middle East, out a total of 101 million mobile customers in the region. It reported revenues of €1.124 billion (around $1.22 billion) for A&ME in the quarter ended 30th June 2015. Airtel's Mobile Money base in Africa, as of 31st March 2015, was 6.2 million, out of a total of 76 million customers. Airtel reported revenues of $1 billion in Africa, for the quarter…
