Real Identity of new owners of 9Mobile, formerly Etisalat Nigeria

RECENT reports indicated that Teleolog y Holdings Limited may have been finally selected as the preferred bidder for 9Mobile, formerly Etisalat Nigeria, the country’s fourth-largest mobile network.

This development may have brought to an end the acquisition process supervised by Barclays Africa, the transaction advisors.

Promoted by Adrian Wood, the pioneer chief executive officer of MTN Nigeria, Teleology emerged as the new owner of 9mobile ahead of Smile, which had been the only other bidder in the final According to industry sources, the round of the takeover bid. company was purposely set up by

Though over 10 bidders had indicatsome influential investors to revive ed interest in acquiring the mobile the embattled telecom. network, only five were shortlisted Teleology is run by the pioneer Mr before the number was further Adrian Wood, chief executive officer reduced to three. (CEO) of MTN Nigeria,.

While Globacom and Helios failed to Adrian Wood back their technical bids with conWood is an economist. He was crete financial bids, Airtel later pulled trained at Cambridge and Harvard out of the process, leaving just Universities. He is also the CEO of Teleology and Smile Communications. Brymedia West Africa Limited.

Teleology After quitting MTN, Wood, an Teleology, a private equity firm with an Australian-born launched an unsucinvestment portfolio of $11 billion, cessful bid for Nigeria’s pioneer offered more than $500 million to national operator, Nigeria acquire the mobile network while Telecommunications Limited

Smile offered about $300 million. (NITEL).