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Monday, June 15, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

South Africa's MTN may buy a proposed 25 percent stake in India's Bharti Airtel via global depositary receipts, or GDRs, issued by the Indian firm.

Separately, one banker involved in the deal said that the GDR route was "only one of the options considered" to avoid an open offer for another 20%. Under Indian rules, a stake buy of 15% triggers a public offer.

Under the initial proposed deal, aimed at a merger of the two firms, MTN would take a 25% interest in Bharti for 2,9-billion-dollars plus new MTN shares equal to about 25% of its existing shares. MTN shareholders would take another 11% of Bharti.

The companies have said Bharti would buy about 36% of existing MTN shares at 86-rand each, plus half a newly issued Bharti global depositary receipt, to be listed in Johannesburg, for each MTN share. Bharti would end up with a total 49% stake in MTN in a complex deal.

Neotel CEO Ajay Pandey said that South Africa could look forward to increased telecommunications connectivity, as the country should have three of four undersea cables coming into the country in the next 12 to 24 months.

These undersea cables would lower the cost of international connectivity, and boost bandwidth. This would allow faster download speeds, and could significantly lower the cost of doing business.

Pandey said that this could trigger a new wave of growth in the industries of information technology, and business process outsourcing.

Also making headlines:

A 1,8-billion-rand ethanol-from-sugar plant is planned for KwaZulu-Natal.
South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation will provide 70-billion-rand of new funding over the next five years to help local companies hurt by the global downturn.
An economist expects South Africa's economy to decline by 2% this year.
And, the ANC confirms that there's no shift in the privatisation policy.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.