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February 12th, 2007
Who's afraid of Mubadala?

…New Telco prepares to roll out There is a new kid on the telecom block in Nigeria and his name is Mubadala. Nigeria's new Unified Service Access licence awardee, the Mubadala Development Company of the United Arab Emirates is firing up the local market through its hitherto undisclosed actions and the anticipation of its Nigeria strategy.


For now, Mubadala is making foundation moves to roll out and as part of this, the company has started subtle acquisition and employment moves which can change the face of the sector .
BusinessDay also gathered from reliable sources that Mubadala is negotiating with leading network infrastructure providers including Alcatel of France, Ericsson of Sweden, Siemens of Germany and Huawei of China, for the roll out of its Nigeria operations , the first phase of which it is anticipated will be cost about $1 billion (N127 billion).


Also, insiders say, Mubadala will likely adopt the Indian business model for its Nigeria operations because Nigeria has similarities with India as regards geographical size, income per capita and some socio-cultural attributes.
Asked about the wisdom of shipping to Nigeria when some think the market is largely taken, a source close to Mubadala said according to statistics available on Nigeria abroad, there are about 75 million Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 55. He further said that if only 30 million of that number has been taken, that would leave 45 million more open to be taken. He further added that if the right strategies were adopted, subscribers would migrate at will to networks that better served their purpose.


Ernest Ndukwe, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) expects also that the added competition posed by Mubadala, will bring about a further improvement in the quality of service in the telecoms industry here and a lowering of costs to the subscriber.
Sources close to Mubadala told BusinessDay that the company has started a recruitment campaign and is fishing for personnel locally and internationally. For this purpose, it is said, the company has appointed two employment agencies, one international and one local.


Mubadala's staff requirement figure is put at about 1,000 of which at least one-third will be technical personnel and another one-third will be marketing personnel. It is said that the company is considering the prospect of co-location its technical equipment with a certain local telco which has very good geographical coverage and is recapitalising. Mubadala is considering the feasibility of rolling out in the second quarter of this year.
We gathered also, that following in the footsteps of other big telecom operators here, Mubadala favours hiring Diaspora Nigerians with specialized skills, so as to blend with its new operating environment.



It is said that to supplement this source Mubadala is offering even fatter salaries to entice technical, marketing and managerial staff from competing operators here as well as from the banks and other organizations, as is customary with new comers. The grapevine in rival organizations is said to be rife with speculation about personnel who might be switching over to Mubadala.


Industry sources also disclosed that Mubadala is proposing to buy up two local private telephony operators (PTOs). One of these, which is particularly strong on data services is based on the Victoria Island extension in Lagos while the other, which is a smaller player is based on Saka Tinubu Street, also in Victoria Island. While the former is not keen to sell, the latter it is said is interested in the deal but does not want a complete buy out.


Informed sources said also that Mubadala favours working with a foreign media agency, which will then cooperate with one or two local agencies.
As if anticipating this, two of the GSM operators are said to have been entertaining fresh bids and proposals from local agencies to sharpen their tussle for the hearts and minds of subscribers.


Our sources say that Mubadala will work with more than one network infrastructure provider so as to achieve a speedy roll out. We also gathered that the network will build its strategy around quality service, competitive pricing, broad coverage, hinterland penetration, social responsibility awareness and a massive media blitz, among others.


Mubadalas licence comes as a total package, as the company was also offered a digital mobile licence and GSM frequencies in the 1800 and 900 MHz bands at the cost of $400 million .


The offer of the licence to the company followed a bilateral agreement between Mubadala, a state-owned multi purpose investment company and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) acting on behalf of the Federal Government.
The Nigerian face of the Dubai- based group, is believed to be Hakeem Bollo-Osagie, former chairman of UBA and this is not his first attemp at picking a slice of the lucrative GSM business in Nigeria.


Mubadala is coming into the Nigerian market, at the take-off of the Unified Licence regime which follows the five year exclusivity of mobile operations which the GSM companies enjoyed.


The Unified Licence allows both mobile and fixed networks to operate across platforms.
Industry watchers say that with a good measure of the nation's telecom market (30 million subscribers) already taken, some ways for Mubadala to speedily entrench itself would include buying out some local operators, focusing on niche services, offering lower service rates and co-locating facilities.


source:- business day of the FEB 12 2007