South Korea’s KT Corp is in talks to acquire a 20 percent stake in Telkom, South Africa.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

South Korea’s KT Corp is in talks to acquire a 20 percent stake in Telkom, South Africa’s largest fixed-line operator and fourth-largest mobile player.

Telkom confirmed in a statement this morning that it was exploring a "Potential Strategic Venture" with KT, which would see the South Korean operator acquire a 20 percent stake at ZAR36.06 (US$4.6) per ordinary share. A report in South Africa’s Business Day newspaper valued the transaction at ZAR4.6billion (US$585 million). 

The proposed tie-up won’t change Telkom’s corporate strategy or lead to job losses, Telkom said in an e- mailed statement to Bloomberg.

For KT, the deal is seen as a strategy to diversify away from its saturated home market. KT “can’t grow any more in the domestic market,” Choi Nam Kon, a Seoul-based analyst at Tong Yang Securities, told Bloomberg. “They can only seek growth outside Korea. Africa is the last remaining market for mobile operators.”

KT sold its 80 percent stake in Russian operator New Telephone Co. in May and is now thought to be looking at assets in Central America and Africa.

According to Bloomberg, Telkom is 39.8 percent-owned by the South African government while a South African state pension fund, Public Investment Corp., owns 10.9 percent.

LTE: Asia: DoCoMo, China Mobile, KT Corp. announce collaboration

WorldWideTech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it has established a partnership with China’s largest mobile operator China Mobile Ltd. and South Korean telecom operator KT Corp. The three companies combined serve more than 600 million mobile customers.

DoCoMo said the “broad-based business tie-up” is designed to increase cooperation between the companies in order to further their respective operations in the Northeast Asian market.

The partnership will include a business cooperation committee that will look into collaboration opportunities, including “the further globalization of corporate activities and the sharply rising popularity of smart phones.” Other areas the companies will look into include international roaming, enterprise services, LTE and other network technologies and common platforms.