After the sale of its Verizon stake, Vodafone is eying  to buy a majority stake in Maroc Telecom from France’s Vivendi which has been in talks with Etisalat.

Etisalat had put up a bid for Maroc Telecom’s 53% stake  at $5.4 billion. Other bidders had pulled out of the deal as one who buys the majority shareholder has to buy out the minority shareholders too, leaving it Etisalat as the only telco interested. One of the shareholders is the Moroccan government which owns 30% of Maroc Telecom.

Vodafone recently sold its 45 per cent stake in US-based Verizon Wireless for $130billion  and is now eying Maroc Telecom and France’s SFR. The Morocco based Maroc Telecom is one of the largest telecom operators in North Africa.

Vodafone is not new to Vivendi. In 2011, it sold its 44 per cent stake in SFR to Vivendi for $10.7 billion. Vodafone  also has a strong presence in Africa with a 65 per cent stake in Vodacom with operations in  Egypt, Tanzania, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, and DRC.

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