Liquid Telecom, in which South African ICT group Altech has a minority stake, has acquired the assets of Rwandatel, Rwanda\u2019s fixed line network operator.<\/p>\n
The deal includes Rwandatel\u2019s copper and fibre network and its customer base but excludes most of the land, which remains the property of Rwandatel.<\/p>\n
This transaction comes four months after Liquid acquired the East African assets of The Altech Group, including a controlling interest in Kenya Data Networks (KDN).<\/p>\n
In January\u00a0Altech<\/a>\u00a0said it\u00a0had disposed of its East African operations in a deal that would see\u00a0Liquid Telecom<\/a>\u00a0taking over the group\u2019s relevant assets.<\/p>\n As part of the deal, Altech \u00a0purchased an additional ordinary shareholding in Liquid to the amount of US$16.5 million, taking an 8.6% stake in Liquid\u2019s issued share capital.<\/p>\n Liquid’s fibre network spans over 13,000km across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho and South Africa.<\/p>\n Nic Rudnick, CEO of the Liquid Telecom Group, said: \u201cLiquid Telecom is expanding rapidly and this is an important and strategic investment. Rwanda is an outstanding FDI destination and we are very confident in the country\u2019s economic future and growth prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam Nkusi, chairman of Liquid Telecom Rwanda, said: \u201cOur priority is to quickly rehabilitate Rwandatel\u2019s core network and to build out the access network in order to serve Rwanda\u2019s people and businesses with the most reliable, high speed, and affordable telecommunications.”<\/p>\n Work on network improvements and expansion is expected to start within weeks.<\/p>\nMore on Liquid Telecom<\/h3>\n