Etisalat Negotiating with Former Owners to Retain Brand Name – CEO

The new management of Etisalat Nigeria has revealed that it was negotiating with UAE’s Etisalat over the continued use of the brand name in the country.

The new Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Boye Olusanya, disclosed this, in Lagos, on Tuesday, according to a report by Reuters.

“We’re still in negotiations with Etisalat over the use of the brand name,” Olusanya said, adding that the technical service agreement with Etisalat covered the brand name, but the telecoms company was run by Nigerians.

However, Olusanya, who formerly an executive with Celtel, said he has plans in place to rename the company if needed, after UAE’s Etisalat said it had terminated a management agreement and given its one-time Nigerian business time to phase out the brand.

Etisalat, which had a 45 percent stake in the Nigerian business, announced, in June, it had been ordered to transfer its shares to a loan trustee after talks with a consortium of 13 Nigerian banks to renegotiate a $1.2 billion loan from 2013 collapsed.

Hatem Dowidar, CEO of Etisalat International, also announced that UAE shareholders in Etisalat Nigeria, including state-owned investment fund, Mubadala, had exited the company and left the board and management.

The new CEO also disclosed that Etisalat Nigeria is focused on getting the telecoms group back on track to make a profit after it was saved from collapse, while working on the paperwork to eventually raise new capital.

“Our mandate is to make sure the business runs as profitably as it can. What is most important now is to ensure that the business runs and meets its obligations. Once we’ve gotten ourselves to where certain decisions are made and the structure and form of the business is formed then maybe we would look at a capital raising structure that would be suitable for the nature of how the business will be run,” Olusanya disclosed.

He added that while the business could run without an immediate recapitalisation, he would not rule one out completely.

“Obviously if its possible to do it tomorrow we will do it, because that enhances the ability of this business to roll-out quickly, to get more subscribers, which is what everybody wants,” he said.

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