Ecobank Gets Fine As Airtel Emerges Sole Bidder For 3.5GHz Spectrum Licence
Something nice happened to Airtel Nigeria last week – it emerged as the sole bidder for the Nigerian Communications Commission’s 3.5GHz spectrum licence auction. The circumstances that led to this were just as interesting as the outcome. Let’s talk about it.
First, MTN Nigeria decided to opt out of the auction. The company did not meet the December 5 deadline for expression of interest as stipulated by the telecom industry regulator. Note that this marked an interesting departure from MTN’s earlier insistence that it was allowed to participate in the auction.
According to the NCC, only two telcos (Airtel and Standard Network) expressed interest in the auction. But out of the two, Airtel became the only one to pay the $27.36 million intention to bid deposit ahead of the auction initially slated for December 19.
Given this development, the NCC said it will cancel the auction and go ahead to award Airtel the licence. The company will also pay the reserve price of $273.6 million for the spectrum licence.
Credit facilities for Airtel and FSDH
In an unrelated development, Airtel Africa signed a $194 million credit facility with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The financing facility aligns with Airtel Africa’s strategy to increase debt within its operating companies.
It has a tenor of eight years and will be used to support the telecom firm’s operations and investments in some of the African markets it operates. The markets are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Republic of Congo and Zambia.
FSDH Merchant Bank received a credit facility totalling $35 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The funds will help to improve access to finance for medium-scale businesses in the emerging sectors of the Nigerian economy.
Fine for Ecobank
Last week, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) Plc was fined N3.2 million by the Nigerian Exchange for failure to file its financial statements after the regulatory due date.
The NGX disclosed this in its X-Compliance report obtained by SpyGist. The report showed that Ecobank was sanctioned during the current financial year (i.e., FY 2022) for failing to file its Q3 2022 on time.
Ecobank Group also disclosed that it recorded transactions valued at $59.1 billion across its digital channels in the first 9 months of 2022. The company disclosed this in its audited financial report for the 9-month ended September 2022.
According to the company, this represents a 44% increase compared to the $40.4 billion it recorded in the same period last year.