RPT-India's Essar to buy Dhabi Group's Africa telco assets

(Repeats story issued on Sunday)

NEW DELHI, Nov 15 (Reuters) - India's Essar Group has agreed to buy a majority stake in Dhabi Group's telecommunication businesses in African nations Uganda and Congo, the Indian energy-to-steel conglomerate said in a statement on Sunday.

Essar said Dhabi's telecom assets, Warid Telecom Uganda and Warid Congo SA, had an enterprise value of $318 million, but did not say how much it was paying for the stake.

The Indian group already offers mobile services in Kenya under the 'yu' brand through its unit, Essar Telecom Kenya.

Essar Group is Vodafone's (VOD.L) partner in India's No.3 mobile firm, Vodafone Essar. It holds a 33 percent stake in Vodafone Essar and a stake of less than 10 percent in another Indian telecoms firm, Loop Mobile.

Standard Chartered Bank was the exclusive financial advisor to the Dhabi Group, the Essar statement said.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Hans Peters)

((devidutta.tripathy@thomsonreuters.com; +91 98187 86430)) Keywords: ESSAR/AFRICA

(C) Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution ofReuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expresslyprohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuterssphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group ofcompanies around the world.nBOM342945