Airtel, Glo among 5 successful bidders that may take over troubled 9mobile

Five out of 16 companies that expressed interest to acquire 9Mobile (formerly known as Etisalat), have been listed as successful bidders for the distressed telecom firm, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said.

While the details of the five successful companies have not been disclosed, it was however learnt that Airtel, Globacom, Smile, Helvis and Telelogy Holdings were the five that were listed.

They were said to have been the ones whose Expressed Interest to Barclays bank, the financial advisers on the bid, were considered qualified to acquire 9mobile.

The executive vice chairman of NCC, Professor Umar Danbatta, made the disclosure in his speech after declaring open the 82nd Edition of Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP) at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja on Thursday.

Danbatta at the event put the worth of the Value Added Service sector of the telecommunication industry at over N30 billion.

He further said that the five successful bidders had been allowed access to the data room of 9mobile in “order for them to assess the financial situation of the company and subsequently make bids for the takeover under a regulated manner.”

Speaking further he said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC are supervising what is going on through the Interim Board that was jointly appointed by both of them. We are going to look into the financial standings of the potential bidders as well as their technical capacity.

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“In the final analysis we would like to see 9mobile taken over by a bidder who has the financial as well as technical capacity to fulfill all the requirements of the telecos to provide quality services to the country.”

Danbatta, who applauded the exponential growth of Value Added Service sector, said that the sector had not only provided job opportunities for Nigerians within the past few years, but has also assisted in the improvement of the wellbeing of Nigerians through its products and services.

“This VAS service providers normally leverage the networks to services on issues that are for the wellbeing of Nigerians, such as information on employment, information on which market to patronise in order to get the best deals when you want to buy goods,” he said.

It would be recalled that the company ran into troubled waters and had to effect a name change following the withdrawal of its international partners and investors with rights to the brand, as talks to resolve differences with a consortium of Nigerian banks broke down over a $1.2 billion loan.

UAE’s Etisalat terminated its management agreement with its Nigerian partner in June and issued it a three-week ultimatum to phase out the brand.

It had surrender its 45 per cent stake to a trustee because of a debt crisis.
9mobile formally announced its name change from Etisalat Nigeria, in a move that marked a culmination of weeks of internal reorganization and an approval process by the NCC.

 

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