The mobile phone operator Mattel owned by Tunisie Telecom which controls 51% of the capital, Mohamed Ould Bouamatou (24.5%) and Béchir El Hassen (24.5%) is for sale. At least that's what Jeune Afrique thinks it knows. According to JA, four candidates are in the running to take over the declining company: Telecel, Axian, Hiridjee and Orange.

Contacted by Financial Afrik, Bouamatou's lawyer, in this case master Yezid El Yezid, confirms the reality of Mattel's capital opening project. Who wants to sell their shares? Tunisie Telecom or its Mauritanian partners? Yezid El Yezid, who represented Bouamatou on the Board of Directors of Mattel at the time when Bouamatou was in exile, contented himself that “precisely these questions and their context, that is what is confidential”.

Tunisians and Mauritanians engaged in a war of attrition the day after the failed takeover of Mattel by Orange in 2014 when Tunisie Telecom, which was to sell its shares, turned around, arguing that it was up to its Mauritanian partners to sell shares to Organge. Since that date Mohamed Ould Bouamatou and Bechir El Hassen had decided not to invest in Mattel anymore. Finally, one can wonder whether the plan to open up Mattel's capital that JA speaks of is not the result of a vast manipulation operation intended to push the majority shareholder Tunisie Telecom out, especially that the executives appointed by him to head of Mattel have always been accused of financial embezzlement by the Mauritanian partners