Sale of Nitel/Mtel assets gears up as BPE receives 17 interests

Despite its moribund state, Nigeria Telecommunication Ltd (NITEL) and its mobile arm, Mtel, are still attractive to investors as 17 bidders are now prospecting for their core assets in the ongoing guided liquidation exercise of the national telecom carrier.

The assets on bid for NITEL are the licences and the spectrum, the nationwide fixed wired networks, the national right of way duct system, the fibre optic transmission backbone, and the CDMA network system. Others are international gateway earth stations, microwave transmission equipment/network and towers and other core assets.

For Mtel, the assets on sale are the licences and the spectrum, national right of way, the Mtel GSM network including mobile switching centres, base station controllers, base transceiver stations and the general packet radio services. Others are the analog (TACs) system and other core assets.

Also on offer is the SAT-3 international submarine cable in which NITEL has 6.32 percent shareholding in the consortium.

The bidders emerged after the June 30 deadline for expression of interest in an exercise being handled by Olutola Senbore & Co, the liquidator appointed by the Federal Government to dispose of the companies that have defied three attempts at their privatisation.

Source: BusinessDay