THE nation's troubled Code Division Multiple Operators (CDMA) arm of the Nigerian telecommunications sector appeared yesterday to have firmed up a strategic revival option, through a $200 million (N32 billion) business combination deal.The Guardian learnt that except for last minute change of arrangements, the trio of Multilinks, Starcomms and MTS are wrapping up merger arrangements that would produce a mega CDMA network operator, to be announced any moment from now.The new network, Guardian learnt, will assume the corporate identity of CAPCOM.Specifically, the $200 million investment would be injected by core investors into the emerging CAPCOM, raising hopes that the CDMA sub-sector would soon experience a rebirth in the telecommunications market.It was gathered that the emerging company has as its shareholders, MBC, 53 per cent shares; Middle East Capital Group, 25 per cent shares; while Helios Investment Partners has 11 per cent shares stakes. Others said to hold shares in the company include Oldonyo Laro Estate five per cent; Bridgehouse Capital Limited three per cent; Asset Management Company of Nigeria, two per cent and private equity investors with one per cent.A senior official at Starcomms, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to The Guardian that the arrangement was on and that it has reached its peak. 'Yes, there is arrangement on that and we shall soon come up with more details on that. It is a merger arrangement.'Efforts by The Guardian to confirm Multilinks' angle of the story proved abortive, as the Corporate Affairs Manager, Mrs. Ijeoma Abazie was said not to be available.It would be recalled that stakeholders, including the former Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, have clamoured for the resurrection of the CDMA sub sector, which fortunes have fallen drastically in the last five few years in the country.Statistics obtained by The Guardian from the NCC yesterday revealed that between January and June 2012, the CDMA operators combined lost about 868,786 active lines.Specifically, at the start of the year, the operators combined had 4,410, 355. The figure declined to 4,013,820 in February and stood at 4,013, 698 in March. The figure fell drastically in April to 3,904,846 and in May it was 3,718, 153 and by June, it reduced further to 3,541, 355. Indeed, going by the present average revenue per user in the country put at N941 by Business Monitor International, a UK based research firm, the CDMA operators, including Visafone; Starcomms; Multilinks and troubled ZoomMobile must have lost about N817 million within the last six months of operations in the country this year.Ndukwe had recommended mergers of the CDMA operators, stressing that if they must survive in a GSM thriving environment such as Nigeria, 'operators in the CDMA business must come together as one.'A source at the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), also confirmed the development, stressing that the agreement was in the final stage of completion.Other stakeholders, who canvassed new life line for the CDMA operator was the President of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, who decried the huge decline in CDMA subscriber base, stressing that a bail-out option is inevitable for the CDMA segment. The bailout, he said, would enable major operators such Starcomms, Multi-Links, ZOOMmobile and Visafone to deploy better infrastructure.According to him, the major problem bedeviling the CDMA networks in Nigeria was low access to capital, which, he said, can only be solved by the government to salvage the pioneer operators from imminent extinction.Before now, CDMA operators complained about lack of funding which assailed their expansion capabilities even with the unified license granted them by the NCC.Information has it that as at today, only Visafone, can be said to be providing services on a serious note, with Starcomms, which at one time was the beautiful bride of the industry suffered serious decline in its voice subscribers statistics.
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