Sri Lanka Telecom Confirms Talks to Buy Hutch's Local Subsidiary:

Sri Lanka Telecom has confirmed that it is in talks to buy the local arm of Hutchison Telecom's mobile network, although it had earlier denied such talks were taking place.

In a stock market announcement last Friday, the company said that it had not negotiated to buy the company, but on Monday later issued a new statement confirming that it was indeed in talks with the firm.

In the statement, SLT said that the talks were still at a preliminary stage, without elaborating further.

The country currently has five mobile networks.

India's Bharti Airtel is said to be closer to a long expected sale of its Sri Lankan subsidiary to Etisalat, and the latest development could see the market consolidated to a more sustainable three mobile networks.

Bharti Airtel Looking at Tower Sales in Nigeria and Bangladesh:

India's Bharti Airtel could be looking at selling its towers in both Nigeria and Bangladesh according to various news reports.

Bharti Airtel owns around 5,000 towers in Nigeria, which have been valued at around US$500 to US$550 million. 

Sources say that tower companies including Helios Tower & IHS are already preparing bids for the tower assets.

A sale is expected as soon as this coming March and could be the start of a continent wide plan to tower asset sales to raise as much as US$2 billion for the company.

In related news, the company is also said to be in talks to sell its towers operations in Bangladesh in a move that could raise around US$200 million for the company. The company is understood to have around 4,000 towers in the country.

Tanzania Looking to Buy Bharti Aitel's 35% Stake in Local Landline Operator:

Tanzania's government is pushing ahead with plans to buy back the 35% stake in a local telecoms network currently owned by India's Bharti Airtel.

Bharti Airtel acquired the 35% stake in TTCL when it bought Zain's African assets in 2010. At the time, the Tanzanian government tried to enforce an option to buy the stake from Zain, but the price being asked was higher than the government wanted to pay.

The government sold the 35% stake in 2001 for US$65 million, and in 2005 agreed to split the company into separate mobile and landline operators.

However, over the past couple of years the government has repeatedly said it wanted to buy back the 35% stake, and take TTCL entirely into state ownership.

"We had talks with our fellow partner on how to buy the shares. We are still working on the financial reports which are update-audited," TTCL Chief Executive Officer Kamugisha Kazaura told The Guardian noting that the move is intended to look at how the situation economically is in Airtel before buying the shares.

The deal does not affect Airtel's mobile network, which it owns a 60% stake in.