Liquid Telecom has secured a $300 million (R4.4 billion) syndicated loan to help fund its R6.55 billion acquisition of Neotel, as well as further African expansion plans.
A spokesperson from Liquid Telecom confirmed the funding amount to ITWeb but would not give further details on the loan.
Bloomberg quoted Liquid Telecom CEO Nic Rudnick as saying the purpose of the additional funding was to allow the group to expand; and would help fund the Neotel purchase as well as other deals under way in Botswana and Tanzania.
Earlier this week, on the side-lines of the AfricaCom 2016 conference in Cape Town, Rudnick told ITWeb that Liquid planned to reduce the debt of Neotel "very significantly" and bring a lot of new capital into the business.
"There is a lot of investment in the network that is going to happen immediately upon the closure of the transaction. So we really see a lot of growth moving forward," he told ITWeb.
He said the deal is "progressing very well" and is expected to close "in weeks rather than months".
In June, Liquid announced it planned to acquire Neotel for R6.55 billion. The deal includes a partnership with Royal Bafokeng Holdings, a South African investment group, which has committed to take a 30% equity stake in Neotel.
The deal came after a long-awaited R7 billion acquisition of Neotel by Vodacom was called off in March.
Rudnick said that with the Neotel transaction, Liquid's presence in SA "is increasing very substantially" and Liquid has big growth plans for Neotel.
"We are not planning to scale down Neotel; we are planning to scale it up and we will grow it. We are not going to go in and start restructuring it in a manner that sees jobs being reduced or anything like that.
"We think there is ample scope for growth which is going to keep at the very least the existing structure of Neotel very busy, if not more," he said.
Liquid Telecom is majority owned by diversified telecommunications group Econet, which was founded by Zimbabwe's richest man, Strive Masiyiwa, and has operations and investments across Africa and the globe.
Following the completion of the Neotel deal, Liquid could also consider listing the combined entity on a stock exchange but Rudnick told Bloomberg the company had not yet made any final decision on this.
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