1. WHAT WAS THE AGREEMENT?

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest cellular service provider, had announced that it had entered into a legally
binding definitive agreement with Zain Group (“Zain”) to acquire Zain Africa BV for $10.7 billion –
making it the largest ever telecom takeover by an Indian firm a decade back.

2. A background on Bharti Airtel (1976-2010)

In 1976, a young entrepreneur Sunil Mittal started the Bharti Enterprises as a small-scale
manufacturing and supplying unit for bicycle components. His clientele included the Hero Group.
diversified into production of yarn, stainless steel sheets for surgical utensils. It also began importing
and marketing stainless steel products, brass and plastic products and zip fasteners.Failed with
Suzuki in Ludhiya, then he struck upon a novel idea of a portable generator and landed with an
agency of Suzuki motor company to sell their generators in India.

By 1984, Bharti was the largest importer of portable generators in India. The Indian government
enforced a ban on import of generators, thereby killing the entire industry of imported generators.
Following this, went to Japan, his inspiration came from an electronics fair at Taipei in Taiwan where
he saw a push-button telephone for the first time tied up with Kingtel for importing simpler version
of those phones into India. That was how India’s push-button phone industry was born. This business
was a reasonable success and Bharti started selling push-button phones replacing the traditional old
rotary phones. The sale volumes were low, but each phone attracted very high margins. Such phones
were a new product in the Indian telecom market and, thus, could sell at a premium.

The industry was opened up to other private sector players increasing competition, To survive
competition, Bharti entered into a technical tie-up with Siemens AG of Germany and became the
first company in India to manufacture electronic push-button telephones in Gurgaon in 1985.

By 1985, the telecom industry in India had already started on the growth curve. Bharti started
disinvesting all its other businesses and investing into products like answering machines (tie-up with
Takacom Corporation, Japan), cordless phones (tie-up with Lucky Gold Star, South Korea) and fax
machines.

By 1991, Bharti Telecom had started shipping its products to international markets. The company
had signed an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) contract with Sprint, USA, for manufacture
and export of telephone sets.

In January 1992, the Indian government decided to allow private sector to enter the mobile phone
business.