Bharti not to raise MTN offer: Sunil Mittal

Bharti Airtel is not considering sweetening its offer for a stake in South Africa's MTN, The Economic Times quoted Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal as saying that the company was not really looking at sweetening the deal

Indian's largest mobile services operator has been in talks with MTN since May to create the world's third largest mobile firm and on Thursday the two companies agreed to extend the talks till 30 September (See: Bharti-MTN yet again extend merger talks to 30 September)

The two companies are negotiating a $23-billion cash and share swap deal that will eventually lead to a full merger. The companies had held talks more than a year ago which broke down over the control of the merged entity.

Mittal has said that the deal framework would be in line with the one announced on 25 May (See: Bharti-MTN: Innovatively structured deal).

The deal would be structured such that both firms would pay cash and equity for stakes in each other with the end result seeing Bharti Airtel acquire a 49 per cent stake in MTN and the South African telco and its shareholders getting 36 per cent interest in Bharti.

While Bharti has not yet announced the specific date for the conclusion of the deal, a source close to the situation said it would happen by mid-September. The deal will create a global telecom powerhouse with a subscriber base of more than 200 million and upward of $20 billion in revenues. The deal, when it is finally concluded, will surpass Tata Steel's acquisition of Corus for $12.3 billion in 2007.