BryMedia still hopeful over NITEL

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BryMedia, the second reserved bidder in the sale of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) with $551 million offer to buy the state-owned company, has expressed optimism to take over the telco despite irregularities arising from the bid process.   New Generation Telecommunications consortium emerged preferred bidder haven offered $2.5 billion for all components of NITEL, including the mobile unit, M-tel, the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network, transmission backbone, the fixed line network and the Nigeria end of the SAT 3 fibre-optic cable network, to which NITEL has exclusive right.   

Nick Batchelor of Telecom New Zealand, technical partners to BryMedia Consortium who spoke exclusively to BusinessDay, said: "We are not frustrated because Telecom New Zealand International has gone this path before; we are a major international carrier with offices in Australia, New Zealand, Los Angeles, London, Dubai, Singapore and Japan. We have been involved in processes like this before, we move about 2 percent of the world's traffic, that's six billion minutes a year. We look for growth opportunities globally."   

Adrian Wood, the head of the consortium, also argued that the $2.5 billion bid for NITEL was irrational from an investment returns perspective.   

According to the former chief executive officer of MTN Nigeria, indications from the international business community clearly reveal that the proposition would be difficult to achieve. But more importantly, he disclosed that a significant proportion of the fund could be channeled strategically towards positioning NITEL for growth after taken possession.   

"Yes, it's a lot of money from the point of view I just mentioned to you about what can be justified in terms investment returns. But more than that, it's what has to be invested in NITEL once you have hold of it. It is not so much what you pay for it but what you then have to invest. In our own case, our bid was $551 million and over 5 years, we will invest over $5 billion. So, we think the ratio of 1:10 is a great one because by investing after possession, we will be able to build a network that reaches every corner of Nigeria, every small village and community. We would have the highest world standards of capacity and connectivity"       

In drawing out BryMedia's strategies for transforming NITEL into a world class business after taking over, Wood disclosed plans to provide telecoms services in all the 774 local government areas of Nigeria.   

"We will have road coverage and even enable economic development. Our plans include direct fibre interconnection to Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad which presently are just connected by a very poor satellite. We also have a plan to upgrade the SAT-3 Cable to multiply capacity."   

He revealed that it would require 12, 000 km of fibre optic cable to achieve maximum coverage of the entire country.

BryMedia still hopeful over NITEL

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