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…says worse is over for Etisalat
The drama surrounding Etisalat has been put into perspective as the Nigerian Communications Commission yesterday at the Sheraton Hotel and Tower Ikeja, Lagos Nigeria narrated the moves so far to salvage the telecoms firm.
TheNewsGuru recalls the Etisalat saga started in March, with a report that the telecoms firm is having financial problems, and an imminent takeover of it by a consortium of 12 banks.
“The worse is over for Etisalat,” said Mr. Sunday Dare, NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management.
Executive Commissioner Dare said the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC made a very strong case for Etisalat at a meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in Lagos, at which the management of Etisalat, and representative of the 12 banks were invited.
“It was at the meeting the CBN Governor clearly was able to plead with the banks to hold on… also spoke with the management of Etisalat to do something quickly about meeting their obligations, particularly servicing the interest of the loan.
“It was agreed at that meeting that another meeting should be convened on March 30th when the banks will present a restructuring plan of the loan,” Dare said.
Dare further stated that “Prior to that Etisalat had a meeting with shareholders and actually presented a plan, but that plan needs to be reworked, and between the end of March and the entire period of April, that negotiation continued”.
He revealed that the NCC on its part decided to write not just the management of Etisalat but also the initial holders, Mubadala Development Company (MDC) that has the control shares in Etisalat, that there was a need to call a shareholder meeting, and consider the need to inject fund into Etisalat as quickly as possible.
“The resultant effect of that letter was the meeting we had yesterday when the Mubadala Group, the largest shareholder, actually visited the NCC yesterday in Abuja; and that meeting is the first part of a four-part meeting,” Dare said, adding: “…the first part with the NCC, the second part with the CBN Governor held yesterday in the afternoon; we are still waiting for the full details of the outcome of that meeting”.
He said the next meeting would be with the consortium of banks based on the restructuring plan that is being presented to the CBN, and thereafter, the meeting of NCC, CBN the consortium of banks and Etisalat.
“It is at that point that, probably before the end of this week or early next week, that we would hear officially what the final agreement.
“We do believe strongly that haven come this far, Etisalat has promised to meet its obligations; the timeline would be reworked and an agreement would be reached.
“And in that light, we can say for certain that 23 million consumers who subscribe to Etisalat services — voice, data, etc — do not have to worry for long because I think the worse is over for Etisalat,” he said.
Etisalat has about $2 million investment in Nigeria, has about $20 billion world.
We just have to wait for the outcome of the meetings, and everything else will become official, Dare concluded.