Zain shareholder Kharafi confident of Bharti deal

NEW DELHI, INDIA: A leading Zain shareholder said he was confident of sealing a $10.7 billion deal to sell most of the firm's African assets to India's Bharti Airtel, ET Now television showed on Monday.

Mohamed Al Kharafi, chairman of Kuwait's Kharafi group, told the channel over the telephone Bharti would pay $10 billion by April and the remaining $700 million by the end of the year for the all-cash deal.

The African unit has $2 billion of debt on its books, he said.