MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Ltd have emerged winners of the licence for 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum auction to deploy Fifth Generation (5G) mobile networks in Nigeria after a long-drawn bidding war which lasted to the eleventh round.
The executive vice chairman, Nigeria Communications Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta, who is the auction overseer announcing the resultrs last night at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, venue of the auction said, “After the eleventh round of bidding, MTN Nigeria Plc and Mafab Communications emerged winners. The preferred winners are expected to pay the sum of $273,600,000 for 100MHz.
“After the Main Stage ended, the process moved to the Assignment Stage where the bidders MTN added $15,900.000 to pick the first lot in the 3500MHz-3600MHz to emerge as the first preferred bid winner. Mafab made a offer of $11,120,000 to emerge as second bid winner and picked the second lot of 100MHz in the 3700-3800MHz bands.”
Airtel Nigeria went for the Exit Bid at $270,000,000 thus pulling of the process. According to Danbatta, the provision winners are expected to pay on or behalf of February 24th, 2022. The process which was transparent will provide substantial funds for the federal government, he said.
A chronology of the bid showed that bidding started at the commission placed the reserve price per lot at $197,400,000 as contained in the final Information Memorandum. Round one kicked off at $199,374,000.00; round two started at $201, 367,740.00; and round three started at $204,388,256.10; round four started at $209,497,962.50; round five started at $215, 782,901.38; round six started at $224,414,217.43; round seven started at $231,146,643.96; round eight started at $240,392,509.71; round nine started at $251, 210,172,65; round ten started at $263, 017,050.00; and round eleven started at $273, 600,000.
Danbatta further stated that After the Main Stage of the auction ended at 7.20pm, the process moved to the Assignment Stage which started at 7.43pm where the preferred bidders were assigned spectrum.
The eligible bidders who participated were MTN Nigeria led by its chief executive officer, Karl Toriola in Bidder Room two and Monitoring Room three; Mafab led by its chairman, Alhaji Musibau Bashiru in Bidder Room one and Monitoring Room Two; while Airtel led by Mr. Sreedhar Krishna, its chief financial officer in Bidder Room Three and Monitoring Room one.
