Privatisation: NATCOM takes over NITEL/Mtel

Privatisation: NATCOM takes over NITEL/Mtel

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) yesterday handed over the assets of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel)
and its mobile arm, the Mobile Telecommunications Mtel to the core
investor, NATCOM.

After receiving the certificate for the ownership for national carrier and Gateway License of Nitel and the Mtel Spectrum, the NATCOM Consortium Chairman, Dr. John Olatunde Ayeni promised that the firm “will bring a brand that will delight the Nigerian customers and market.”

The CEO, who spoke in Abuja said: “A new player and a new entity is
entering the telecom industry today and a new brand and a strong
brand has come.”

He said the firm is of the belief that there is a vacuum in the
telecommunications market and the vacuum is the space that
NATCOM’s unique brand would fill.

Filling the vacuum entails “listening to the customers and delighting
them with what they need,”he said, promising that his group has
resolved to make the customer the king.

Vice President Namadi Sambo, who is also the NCP chairman, told the
chequred history of Nitel and Mtel before its final privatisation to
NATCOM.

He recalled that in 2001, the strategic core investor sale of 51 per cent
shareholding of Nitel to International London Limited (IILL) was
unsuccessful.

He noted that in 2005, there was also a failed management contract
by Pentascope with and aborted Orascom Telecoms bid in the same
year.

Sambo said there was the strategic core investor sale, through
negotiated sale strategy, to Transcorp which was cancelled in 2009.

In 2011, according to him, there was the strategic core investor sale,
where New Generation Communications Limited and Omen
International Limited emerged as preferred bidders.

On NATCOM, the Vice President explained that NCP approved the
privatisation through a Guided Liquidation Strategy through a
competitive bid process.

He stressed that two bidders submitted their technical and financial
proposals after which NATCOM met met the technical requirement.

Sambo said that “Its financial proposal was publicly opened on
October 24, 2014. The first bid was $221million which was below the
reserved price. After a second round of bidding, the revised bid of
$252,221,000 was above the reserve price. NATCOM was therefore
declared the preferred bidder.”

He urged stakeholders to see the privatisation as a necessary tool for
the deregulation and opening up of hitherto government dominated
sectors of the economy to the private sector as well as divestures of
government’s interest in such sectors.