Nigerian businessman Mike Adenuga has approached the federal government with a US$450m offer for a majority stake in telecoms incumbent Nitel and its mobile unit Mtel, local media THISDAY reports.
In a letter addressed to president Goodluck Jonathan,…
Nigerian businessman Mike Adenuga has approached the federal government with a US$450m offer for a majority stake in telecoms incumbent Nitel and its mobile unit Mtel, local media THISDAY reports.
In a letter addressed to president Goodluck Jonathan, Adenuga has also reportedly offered to invest an undisclosed amount to revamp and upgrade the operator’s network and to list the company.
The businessman also reportedly plans to make the acquisition through a special purpose vehicle and not through his local telecoms operator Globacom.
Globacom, like other local operators MTN and Airtel, had been banned to take part in the previous privatisation process.
In early July, president Goodluck Jonathan had opted for a ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ approach for the sale of a 75% stake in Nitel after the last privatisation process was cancelled.
Indeed, in June the sale of 75% of Nitel was shelved after the reserve bidder, a consortium of China Unicom and Fiber Home Technologies, failed to make the first US$105m payment on the 15 June deadline. The consortium had emerged as the reserve bidder with an offer at US$956m, after the frontrunner missed several payment deadlines last year.
In July, local company Snytel Communications was reported to have entered a partnership with Swedish vendor Ericsson on the one hand and with US financial consortium DKAI on the other hand with a view to bidding for Nitel.
BNP Paribas and Eledas Capital Partners were advising the authorities.
