The definitive agreements are to be signed in the coming days, it saidThe board of directors at Mobile Telecommunications Company, also known as Zain, completed the due diligence process on Wednesday for Bharti Airtel's proposed acquisition of its African operations. The parties are finalizing definitive agreements, which are expected to be signed in the coming days, Zain of Kuwait said in a statement on Thursday. After signing, the parties will move towards getting any required approvals, it added. The sale of Zain Africa BV does not include Zain's operations in Sudan or its investment in Morocco, the company said.

Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile carrier, said last month that it was in exclusive discussions to buy the African operations of Zain, in a deal with an enterprise value of US$10.7 billion. The period for exclusive discussions ends Thursday.

The bid for Zain's operations came after Bharti Airtel failed twice to arrive at an agreement with MTN Group in South Africa. That plan was rejected by the South African government, which wanted to maintain MTN's separate identity.

Bharti Airtel earlier this week said it had tied up the entire financing of $8.3 billion needed for the proposed acquisition of Zain Africa.

The expansion into Africa, where less than 50 percent of the people have mobile phones, presents a good growth opportunity for Bharti Airtel, according to analysts. The Indian market is already saturated with far too many players, and average revenue per user is falling as a result of a tariff war, they added.

In Africa, Zain offers telecommunications services in Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, according to the company's Web site.

By expanding its business outside the country, Bharti Airtel will also gain the economies of scale needed to become more cost-efficient, Kamlesh Bhatia, a principal research analyst at Gartner, said in February.

While Africa provides a tremendous growth opportunity, analysts agree, entering 13 countries with different market dynamics in one go will create a number of challenges. The company will have to build up brand equity characterized by reliability very quickly. The company will also have to show itself to be innovative as well, in order to be able to compete favorably with other regional operators.

Bharti Airtel is acquiring Zain Africa operations at a time when the company is facing network problems and accusations of lack of transparency in the billing system, so the new owners will have to work hard to improve the network and its billing system.

"We expect the network to improve in a shortest possible time as Bharti Airtel is India's largest telecom operator with enough financial resource to make the change," said Edith Mwale, an analyst with the African Center for ICT Development.

In addition, Econet Wireless Holdings is still disputing control of Zain units in Nigeria, the company's largest single source of revenue in Africa. Econet Wireless CEO Strive Masiyiwa said last week that there has been no agreement or settlement in the dispute over its Nigerian operation.

Econet is seeking to overturn a 2006 deal in which Celtel bought a 65 percent stake in Vmobile, later renamed when it was sold to Zain. Econet, with a 5 percent stake in Zain Nigeria, said it was not consulted when Vmobile was sold to Zain. The case is still being arbitrated by the court of arbitration and until the process is completed, the Zain Nigeria operation transaction cannot be completed.