Kenyan Court Freezes Safaricom Ownership Transfer to Vodacom Pending Appeal
A Kenyan court has ordered that Vodacom retain its 15 percent Safaricom stake pending a Court of Appeal ruling, freezing the $1.9 billion ownership transfer. The injunction keeps East Africa's most closely watched telecoms ownership dispute unresolved while the appeal proceeds.
Safaricom: the government is appealing its own deal
The detail that keeps nagging: it's Kenya's attorney-general who brought the application to fast-track the appeal — the same government that sold the shares, banked KSh204 billion, and took an extra KSh40 billion upfront against future dividends.
The government wants the deal to stand. The court that struck it down was, in effect, overruling the government's own transaction.
So the freeze isn't really about whether Vodacom should control Safaricom. It's about whether a government can sell a public asset without asking the public first — and then appeal a ruling that says it can't, while holding the cash.
2 sources
- Safaricom control to stay with Vodacom until appeal · techcentral.co.za · T2
- Vodacom to keep 15% Safaricom stake pending Court of Appeal’s ruling on $1.9 billion deal · technext24.com · T2