According to premium times;
A consortium run by Skye Bank’s chairman,
Olatunde Ayeni, the founder of Sahara
Energy, Tonye Cole, and two other companies,
have received the nod from the Nigerian
government to take over the country’s
moribund, but potentially lucrative telecom
carriers, NITEL and MTEL, once they pay
$242.3 million (about N42.4 billion).
The investment vehicle, NATCOM
Telecommunications, on Wednesday emerged
the sole bidder for the Nigerian
Telecommunications Limited, NITEL, and its
mobile subsidiary, the Mobile
Telecommunications, Mtel.
NATCOM has as members NATSPACE
Telecommunication Investment Limited, PCCW
Global Limited, Prime Union Investment
Limited, Olutoyi Estate Development &
Services Limited, Legal Resources Alliance &
Co., Sahara Energy Resources Limited, and LM
Ericsson Nigeria Limited.
Of the seven firms, Mr. Ayeni, profiled as a
businessman and lawyer on Skye Bank’s
website, owns three, PREMIUM TIMES can
confirm.
He is the founder and operator of Prime
Union Investment Limited, Olutoyi Estate
Development & Services Limited, and Legal
Resources Alliance & Co. There are
suggestions that he has link with NATSPACE
but PREMIUM TIMES is unable to
independently verify that as at the time of
publishing this report.
Mr. Ayeni is leading NATCOM in its
acquisition of NITEL/MTEL less than two
months after he similarly led Skye Bank to
buy Mainstreet Bank from the Assets
Management Company of Nigeria, for N120
billion.
In 2013, Mr. Ayeni was the chief promoter of
Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing
Company Limited, a group that eventually
bought the Ibadan and Yola electricity
Distribution Companies, DISCOs.
Mr. Cole is the owner of Sahara Energy, while
LM Ericsson is a subsidiary of Swedish group,
Ericsson.
NATCOM, which merges the seven firms,
appears to a new corporate entity created
solely for the purchase of NITEL/MTEL. Very
little is known about the consortium.
If the group pays the agreed N42.4 billion to
the government, it would be a successful sale
that comes after four failed attempts by the
Nigerian government to dispose of NITEL.
It however remains unclear whether the
N42.4 billion offered by the consortium
represents the real value of the
telecommunication carriers.
NATCOM emerged winner after NETTAG
Consortium, another little known group, was
disqualified for failing to attach a $10million
bid bond to its bid submission as stipulated in
the Request for Proposals (RFP) to prospective
bidders.
The RFP requires that 30 percent of the bid
price be paid within 15 days of notification to
the bid winner, while the balance would be
paid within 90 days.
The bid would still have to be subjected to the
approval of the National Council on
Privatisation, a requirement that appears
more of a formality as Wednesday’s bid
process was organized by the Bureau for
Public Enterprises, BPE, and supervised by
the NCP.
At the commencement of the exercise,
NATCOM made an initial offer of $221million
for NITEL and MTEL.
But the NCP technical committee chairman,
Atedo Peterside, who was represented by his
deputy, Haruna Sambo, rejected the offer.
The company reviewed its offer to
$252.251million, which was immediately
declared acceptable.
“I am happy to announce that the resized bid
has met the reserve price,” the chairman, Mr.
Sambo announced.
According to Mr. Sambo, following the
disqualification of NETTAG Consortium, only
NATCOM Consortium’s financial bid was
considered qualified.
He said apart from submitting a valid bid
bond, NATCOM’s technical bid proposal scored
an average of 92 per cent, which was
considered above the minimum pass mark of
75 percent.
Nigeria started the process of privatising the
national telecom groups in 2000 as part of the
government’s reform of the
telecommunications sector.
However, four attempts and a management
contract aimed at repositioning the firms
ended without success.
In 2001, the government tried to sell 51 per
cent equity to Investors International London
Limited (IILL) as the strategic core investor.
There was also the failed management
contract by Pentascope in 2005, the aborted
Orascom Telecoms bid in 2005, and the
strategic core investor sale through negotiated
sale strategy to Transcorp that was cancelled
in 2009.
The last effort was the strategic core investor
sale in 2011, where New Generation
Communications Limited and Omen
International emerged preferred and reserved
bidders respectively.
Following the last failed attempt, Mr. Sambo
said the guided liquidation strategy approved
by the NCP was adopted.
BPE director general, Benjamin Dikki, said the
NCP was faced with numerous challenges,
including outstanding unpaid terminal
benefits of ex-staff of NITEL/Mtel, arrears of
salaries of retained staff and outsourced
security as well as accumulated unpaid
license and other fees to the National
Communications Commission (NCC).
The Minister of Communications Technology,
Omobola Johnson, said the privatization of the
government-owned telecoms companies was
the last segment in the reform process in the
country’s telecommunication sector, which
commenced since 2000.
She said the Federal Government would
continue to fine tune policies to provide
enabling environment for the growth and
development of a private sector-driven
telecommunications industry.
Mrs. Johnson said the liberalisation of the
sector in the last 13 years attracted new
investments valued at over $32billion entirely
from the private sector, resulting in over 130
million subscribers compared to just 750,000
previously.
No comments: