Condemnation has continued to trail
the announcement of Teleology as the preferred bidder for 9Mobile. The latest
of the trenchant condemnation rails at the perceived tardiness by Barclays
Africa, the financial advisor to the sale of 9Mobile.
Making the condemnation in a statement issued in Abuja,
a non-governmental organization Business Renaissance Group (BRG), noted that
the letter said to have been sent to Teleology by Barclays Africa was hasty and
preemptive.
It noted that in a meeting held with the interested
bidders on the 26th of January 2018, Barclays gave the two finalists in the bid
process: Teleology Holdings and Smile Telecoms Holdings the opportunity to
increase their bid for 9Mobile within 30 days which brought the deadline date
to Monday February 26, 2018.
The group wondered why Barclays could not wait till
the 26th of February 2018 before its apparently preemptive announcement of a
preferred winner. It therefore alleged
that Barclays had merely changed the rules while the game was at its climax.
Further alleging bias against Barclays in the handling
of the sale of 9mobile, BRG recalled that Barclays had earlier affirmed that
any preferred bidder on selection will need to sign a Sales Purchase Agreement
immediately and will have to instantly pay a non-refundable deposit of USD 50
million.
It decried a situation where Barclays has now given
its announced preferred bidder 21 days to pay the non-refundable fee of USD 50
million. To BRG, this is a classic case
of bending the rules and shifting the goal post to favour a particular team
The group further underscored its allegation of a less
than transparent handling of the entire bid process by Barclays Africa by
recalling that some of the earlier entrants, among them two major GSM network
operators, had opted out of the process alluding to lack of transparency.
It also claimed that at least two major vendors of
9mobile rejected the financial offers of the preferred bidder and had no
confidence in weak and unrealistic business plan presented. And wondered how such a bidder with
questionable business plan would be able to sustain and improve the operations
of 9mobile.
BRG contended that the precipitated announcement by
Barclays is indicative that the preferred bidder did not satisfy any of the
precedent conditions. It therefore called
on the regulatory authorities especially the Nigerian Communications Commission
(NCC) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to take more than a passing interest in
the bid process.
It advised that instead of the regulators especially NCC
merely giving a stamp of approval to the seemingly contrived result by Barclays,
the commission should undertake a review of the entire process with a view to
ensuring that strict adherence to the canons of corporate governance and
transparency are upheld in the 9mobile bid process.
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