Nigeria’s National Council on Privatization (NCP) is allowing three companies to bid for state-owned telco Nitel and its mobile subsidiary M-Tel, according to local reports citing an NCP statement.
The council had approved the privatisation of both…
Nigeria’s National Council on Privatization (NCP) is allowing three companies to bid for state-owned telco Nitel and its mobile subsidiary M-Tel, according to local reports citing an NCP statement.
The council had approved the privatisation of both companies in early 2012 as part of a ‘guided liquidation’, in light of substantial amounts of debt the operators had accumulated over the years.
By the 14 August 2012 deadline, 35 prospective investors reportedly expressed their interest in Nitel. But according to the statement quoted by local reports only three companies pre-qualified after scoring 75% and above in terms of requirements for the acquisition.
Neither the names of the bidders nor the timing for the final bids have been disclosed. The NCP could not be reached for comment before the press deadline.
Nigeria’s senate committee on privatisation and commercialisation recently said that Nitel should not be liquidated, arguing that the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), part of the NCP, did not know the operator’s value.
During a conference on 23 May, senator Olugbenga Obadara said the operator should not be sold because no one was able to say how much it is worth.
Obadara later reportedly commented on the fact that the liquidation plan is not in the best interests of the country. Instead, Nitel should be turned into a public-private partnership in order to create more jobs. Eventually, the PPP could be floated on the country’s stock exchange, he was quoted as saying.
Nigeria has tried several times previously to privatise the telco.
In June 2011, a sales attempt was shelved after the reserve bidder, a consortium of China Unicom and FiberHome Technologies, failed to make a first payment.
A ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ approach for the sale of a 75% stake in Nitel and M-Tel, announced by Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan in early July 2011, also failed to find a buyer.
Nigeria is currently home to nine mobile operators, with M-Tel being amongst the smallest.
