Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has announced that it will reconsider the reserve bid for the state-owned telco, NITEL after the winning bidder was unable to pay the 30 per cent deposit after the previous attempt to sell the company.

Financial bids for NITEL/M-tel were held last February, and Omen International Consortium emerged as the reserved bidder with an offer price of US$956 million. The winning bid came from a UK based company, New Generation Consortium, which offered a significantly larger US$2.5 billion for the company, but then missed several deadlines to pay the deposit.

The sale was for 75 per cent of the company, with the government retaining the remaining stake.

The offer from the Omen International Consortium – which is backed by China Unicom – was valid for six months, so the privatisation managers have asked them to resubmit their bid, and if approved, then the sale will go ahead.

Local company, Transcorp bought a 75 per cent stake in NITEL in 2006 for US$750 million during an earlier privatisation sale, but the government reclaimed the stake in 2009 following several years of neglect.

Zain Group has announced two senior appointments as part of the ongoing restructuring and consolidation process focusing on the growth of its cash generative regional operations.

Zain Jordan CEO Abdul Malek Al Jaber will also take on the additional role of Zain Group chief operating officer (COO), while Zain Kuwait CEO, Khalid Al Omar will, in addition to his current post, take on the duties of Zain Group chief technology officer (CTO), a position he previously held.

Al Jaber joined Zain in July 2009 as CEO of Zain Jordan, where, over the last 18 months, the operation witnessed remarkable growth in both revenue and net profit and further enhanced its customer leadership, despite operating in a competitive landscape of four operators.

Abdul Malek Al Jaber

Previous to joining Zain, he was vice chairman and CEO of Palestine’s PalTel Group, from 2003, restructuring the company towards increased profits, sustained innovation and social responsibility in a competitive and operationally challenging environment.

Al Omar has been one of the stalwarts of the Zain executive management team for many years contributing to the company’s many recent milestone successes. He has been with the company for 25 years, joining Zain in December 1986, rising through the company’s ranks over the years holding various leading positions.

Khalid Al Omar

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is reportedly seeking to renegotiate the terms of its US$1.2 billion acquisition of Motorola Solution’s wireless network assets. The company is facing difficulty getting approval from Chinese authorities and recently said that it would have to delay the completion of the transaction. It is also facing a legal challenge from Huawei in the USA over the Chinese vendor’s prior agreements with Motorola.

It is reported that NSN wants to exclude Motorola’s GSM unit from the acquisition and renegotiate the price accordingly in order to win antitrust approval by the Chinese government, Bloomberg News reported, citing anonymous sources.

US and European regulators have already approved the transaction with the GSM assets included in the sale.

Batelco this morning announced that the Kingdom Holding Company/Batelco consortium’s joint bid to acquire Zain Kuwait’s 25 per cent stake in Zain Saudi Arabia, has been accepted by the Zain board. The Kingdom/Batelco consortium’s offer is non-binding, based on US$950 million in cash and subject to the findings of the due diligence exercise and other approvals which could take at least six weeks. The consortium’s offer does not include undertakings for the assumption of US$3.8 billion of Zain Saudi’s debt.

The successful exit of Zain Kuwait from its operation in Saudi Arabia would remove the main obstacle remaining for the acquisition of Zain Kuwait by Etisalat. That deal could not be ratified earlier in the year as Etisalat’s overlapping exposure in Mobily in Saudi Arabia prevented it from moving forward with its acquisition of a 46 per cent stake in Zain Kuwait, until the latter operator was able to exit its Saudi operation; a process that now appears underway given the acceptance of the Kingdom-Batelco offer.

As reported by Comm. yesterday, Batelco Group CEO Peter Kaliaropoulos described his company’s position in the joint venture as that of “technical partner”, and at this time it is unclear whether Batelco is participating in the consortium as just a technical partner, or whether it will participate in the equity as well.

Following preliminary discussions with Batelco Group, and a meeting held between Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), chaired by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, and Batelco, the two companies announce they have agreed key terms for Batelco to be the telecom operator in a revised bid to acquire 25 per cent stake of Zain Saudi Arabia.

From right to left: Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal AlSaud, Shaikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, Peter Kaliaropoulos, and Ahmed Halawani

“We are pleased to announce that we reached agreement with Batelco Group to participate in the Kingdom Holding led consortium to acquire 25 per cent of Zain Saudi Arabia,” said Ahmed Halawani, executive director of KHC. "Today we submitted a revised non-binding offer to Zain Group for its 25 per cent stake of Zain Saudi Arabia, valid till 9am on March 14, 2011. Should our offer meet with acceptance from Zain Group board directors, Kingdom Holding looks forward to leading the due diligence phase and negotiating the terms and conditions of the final binding agreement between all parties”.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to jointly bid and support KHC in its efforts to acquire 25 per cent of Zain Saudi Arabia, as their technical partner,” commented Peter Kaliaropoulos, Batelco Group CEO. We value KHC’s leadership and we look forward to supporting them through an effective technical and business partnership.”

At the end of February Zain Group rejected all three bids for its 25 per cent stake in its Saudi Arabian subsidiary. The bids were submitted separately by Batelco, Kingdom Holding and a consortium led by Al Riyadh Group. The stake is currently valued at around US$750 million.