BY BUSAYO SAMUEL
Airtel Africa, a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with a presence in 14 countries across Africa, says it has received $125million fresh capital from three investors, TPG’s The Rise Fund, Mastercard and QIA.
The investment capital according to the Company will be spent to reduce Group debt and invest in network and sales infrastructure in the countries where it operates.
“With the conditions for second closing having now been met, TPG and QIA have each invested a further $50m, and Mastercard a further $25m, in the secondary purchase of shares in AMC BV from a subsidiary of Airtel Africa. Both QIA and TPG each appointed a director to the board of AMC BV upon the first closings.
With these second closings, Airtel Africa will have received a total of $500m cumulative proceeds from the minority stake sales in Airtel Money from the three investors,” the company disclosed in a statement.
Meanwhile, Airtel Africa has also been granted approval in principle by the Central Bank of Nigeria to operate as a super-agent in Nigeria. The super-agent licence is distinct from the Payment Service Bank (‘PSB’) licence, for which we received approval in principle on November 4, 2021.
The PSB licence is required for Airtel to be able to provide financial services in Nigeria such as accepting cash deposits and carrying out payments and remittances, issuing debit and prepaid cards, operating electronic wallet and rendering other financial services.
Under the super agent licence we would be able to create an agent network that can service the customers of licensed Nigerian banks, Payment service banks and licenced mobile money operators in Nigeria. Final approval of the super-agent licence is subject to the Group satisfying certain standard conditions.
