Lagos - The Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (TransCorp) has agreed to buy a controlling stake in the nation's state-owned telephone company for $750 million (R5.4 billion), ending a five-year process that yielded three failed bids for Nigerian Telecommunications (Nitel).
TransCorp won the bidding for a 75 percent stake in Nitel, a government official said.
TransCorp's technical partners are BT Group and Emirates Telecommunications, which is known as Etisalat.
The companies won the bid through a negotiated sale that began in May.
The most recent attempted sale in December ended after the winning $256 million bid from Orascom Telecom failed to meet the reserve price.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the government agency overseeing the transaction, had set a deadline of Friday last week to complete the deal, which will be among the biggest sales of government assets in Africa this year.
The sale includes the fixed-line and cellphone units as well as property and other assets. Other bidders included Globacom, Telkom and Etisalat.
Nitel, which connects 500 000 fixed-line phones in Nigeria, was losing value daily as liabilities increased and revenue declined, the BPE said on May 4. Nitel generated 1.5 billion naira (R88 million) last year, compared with 15 billion naira in 2002.
Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with about 150 million people. It might have as many as 30 million cellphone users by 2009, almost double the current number, according to a November estimate by MTN chief executive Phuthuma Nhleko. - Bloomberg