👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Osun State vs. MTN

Good morning ☀️

Heads up. We’ve roped in some interesting speakers for Moonshot 2024, and one is Kola Aina. 

Founder of Ventures Platform, Kola Aina’s goal is to replicate Silicon Valley’s success by providing capital, mentorship, and a supportive ecosystem for African startups. Despite numerous challenges, Aina’s determination and strategic investments have fueled remarkable growth and success for startups across Africa.

He will join other innovators and industry leaders who are developing groundbreaking solutions to Africa’s most pressing challenges. Save your seat at Moonshot! Get tickets here.

Access Bank closes in on NBK acquisition

Access Bank, one of Nigeria’s tier-1 commercial banks, is close to acquiring National Bank of Kenya (NBK) in a deal believed to be worth $100 million, pending approvals from regulators. The deal, which has been in the works since March 2024, will see Access Bank inherit NBK’s branch networks—and its financial problems.

NBK, with only $79.77 million in assets, is nowhere close to being one of Kenya’s top ten commercial banks. It grapples with a high 25.3% in non-performing loans, its pre-tax profits dropped last year, and the bank has been struggling to meet capital requirements set by Kenya’s central bank. Its owners, KCB Group, have spent over $60 million since 2019 to keep the bank afloat.

Yet, Access Bank still sees NBK as a promising prospect. In March, it signed a binding agreement with KCB Group to acquire 100% shares in NBK. That deal was expected to be completed after six or seven months.

But what makes NBK an interesting prospect to Access Bank is not its financials.

NBK has a wide branch network across Kenya, with 85 branches spread across urban and peri-urban cities. In contrast, Access Bank, which entered Kenya in 2020 through another acquisition, has only 22. Once the deal goes through, Access Bank will have 107 bank branches.

With that spread, Access Bank will be able to build its presence in a market it has desperately pursued after the Sidian Bank deal fell through.

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Osun State v MTN

In a dispute over a broadband project gone awry, the Osun state government in Nigeria is demanding that MTN pay ₦945 million ($599,000) in right-of-way (RoW) fees. 

The state government says MTN laid cables without proper approvals, while MTN says it paid fees to a licenced partner, O’odua Infraco. 

The controversy stems from a 2022 agreement in which MTN and O’odua Infraco partnered to lay 270,000 metres of fibre-optic cables to provide internet services in the state. 

Osun State billed MTN Nigeria ₦3,500 ($2.22) for this project. But MTN allegedly blindsided the State and paid only ₦650 ($0.41) per linear metre to the government via O’odua.

What complicates this messy affair is the fact that the state now says it did not receive any money from O’odua, a company it also claims is not authorised to collect fees on its behalf. More so, the ₦3,500/linear metre fee is a far cry from the standard ₦145 ($0.09) per linear metre fee recommended by the Federal Government in 2020.

Now, the State, believing telcos must bear the full cost of their infrastructure, wants its monies paid in full. It is also fining MTN an additional ₦100 million ($63,000) over alleged tax negligence.

With the Osun state situation in disarray, the big question is where should the government draw the line in the role it plays in Nigeria’s broadband penetration efforts?

Frank Eleanya dives deeper here.

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IHS has been putting out many fires recently. The telecom operator is considering selling its businesses in Rwanda and Zambia to pay back some of its debt. 

According to its H1 2024 financials, IHS’s short-term debts increased from $158,000 to $454,000. However, its overall debts were reduced by a small margin, from $3.4 million to about $3 million. 

The company drew $60 million from its $600 Bullet Term Loan Facility in April 2024 for general corporate purposes and to pay off its existing debts—IHS Holding (2021) Bridge Facility and the U.S. dollar tranche of Nigeria (2019) Term Loan. So far, the company has drawn $430 million from its Bullet Term Loan Facility.

Although IHS profits took some beating in Nigeria, its biggest market due to currency devaluation, the group earned about $108,218 across sub-Saharan markets which includes Zambia, and Rwanda. Conversations about the sale are in their early stages, according to people familiar with the matter.

The news comes after we reported the layoff of about 100 of its senior employees to shelve costs and extend its runway. The company which has a cash balance of about $445,713 will raise between $500 million and $1 billion in the coming months. 

The devil works hard, but Nigeria’s Data Protection Commission (NDPC) works harder. One month after the regulator fined Meta for data privacy, it has slapped a ₦555.8 million ($354,000) fine on Fidelity Bank for alleged data infraction. 

At the heart of the matter is a customer’s claim that the bank had used their personal information without consent to open an account. The regulator claimed the bank violated Nigeria’s Data Protection Act by relying on non-compliant third-party data processors to process customers’ data. 

Fidelity, however, denied those allegations. It claims that an internal investigation revealed no evidence of a data breach and that the account opening process was not completed due to missing documentation. 

The NDPC had initially demanded the payment of a remedial fee of ₦250 million ($159,000) on December 5, 2023, but the bank challenged this decision. Despite ongoing negotiations, the NDPC increased the fine to ₦555.8 million on August 20.

The bank’s dispute with the NDPC comes amidst growing scrutiny of data privacy and protection in Nigeria. The regulator fined Meta $220 million, over claims that it did not give users consent over the use of their data.