Adrian Wood, a former CEO of MTN Nigeria, has been appointed to run Ntel, a struggling telecoms business, in its attempt to restructure and rebrand.


Wood, who took over the role in January of this year in a stealthy manner, has revealed his intentions to seek $550 million from investors in order to rebuild the business. This was revealed by the newly appointed Ntel CEO in a June 5, 2024 letter to the workers, a copy of which Nairametrics was able to view.

Launched in 2016, Ntel is a division of the government-owned NITEL that was purchased by NATCOM Development and Investment Limited (NatCom). But over time, its fortune has diminished.



The manoeuvres for the comeback In a letter to the company’s employees, Wood outlined the actions he has taken since taking on the role of CEO in January of this year.


He stated, “On 21 May I visited the EVC/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Aminu Maida. We had a very productive session about the forward plan for NatCom, our role in industry building, as well as the prospects for raising equity and debt capital to fund a complete new 4G/5G network design and rollout nationwide.


“In the background, I have been engaging with potential institutional investors. When the new financial business plan and offering document are ready soon, there will be a roadshow to raise (estimated) US$500 million to US$550 million, to restructure, rebuild and develop NatCom.

“Already, together with CIO Anthony Adegbola, one New York investment fund visited some of our Lagos facilities. With the visitor, I also had a positive meeting with the African Capital Alliance, one of Nigeria’s (and Africa’s) premier private equity funds groups. ACA was an early-stage investor in MTN Nigeria. They told us it remains their investment with the best returns, ever.

“Next week I will be seeing three other potential institutional investors.”

The investors on target, he continued, are focused on Africa, have offices in Nigeria, and have made investments in other sectors of the Nigerian economy. They are also looking to fund digital infrastructure initiatives.

However, he pointed out that obtaining significant financial commitments in multiple phases would need months of discussions. He stated that the company would use a facility from AMCON, a 55% shareholder in NatCom, before receiving fresh investments to go through the critical stages of project management office planning, new capital creation, and network rollout, before relaunching the business.

New Brand

Wood told the employees to be optimistic, but at the end of the ongoing reorganisation process, the company would have a new identity.

Assuring the staff, “There will be a set of business strategies that are fresh, innovative, and new to the market. There will be products and services, and service combinations, which do not exist in Nigeria at present. All technical systems and platforms will be constructed and rolled out nationwide, from the ground up. It will be an enormous undertaking – but we will prevail. I am sure of it.”

What You Should Know

The national fixed and mobile providers of Nigeria, NiTel/MTel, sold their main telecom assets to NatCom Development & Investment Ltd (NatCom) in 2014 under a managed liquidation process.

– The company called its first Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call in Lagos on Thursday, February 25, 2016, after making its first on-net test data call in Lagos on Monday, January 18, 2016.
– Notwithstanding these challenges, the company managed to establish complete network coverage in Abuja within the first six months of operation, subsequently extending to substantial portions of Lagos, Ogun, Nasarawa, and Niger states.
– It improved its self-care recharge through its website, introduced full VoLTE services, inked a historic agreement with Samsung, and revolutionised the broadband market with its lightning-fast and limitless data offerings.
– Industry observers, however, think that NTEL’s April 2016 4G service launch was a mistake because few customers at the time had 4G-capable phones, leaving NTEL to operate alone in a sparsely connected environment.

SOURCE:https://brandspurng.com/2024/06/20/ntel-employs-former-ceo-of-mtn-nigeria/