MTN Nigeria has today signed a seven year N200 billion medium term loan facility with 12 Nigerian banks. With FBNQuest acting as the facility agent, MTN says that the loan was deemed necessary for it to fund its capital expenditure (CAPEX), working capital and evolving business opportunties, especially to grow data revenues by serving undearserved and unserved parts of Nigeria.
Ferdi Moolman, MTN’s CEO who spoke at the signing in Lagos said; ” the loan facility will enable us evolve the network to deliver convergent and superior quality, drive voice capacity expansion and date service penetration, maintain optimal capital structure and funding level that support growth and expansion.”
MTN was careful to make sure that the loan taken in local currency (Naira) to avoid entrapment and inability to pay back due to economic inconsistency, as in the case of the then Etisalat (now 9mobile).
The facility is structured with a two year moratarium and a repayment plan of five years to the 12 banks which are; Citibank Nigeria Limited, Diamond Bank Plc, Ecobank Nigeria Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, FCMB Limited, FSDH Merchant Bank Limited, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) Nigeria Limited, Standard Chartered Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc and Union Bank of Nigeria.
The new loan arrangement is expected to enable MTN, which is currently the largest operator in Nigeria with 41 per cent market share and services over 60m subscribers, to expand services to rural areas.
Jumoke Akiyode Lawanson
