New Suitors Eye Vee Network

Vee Network may have lost Vodacom but certainly not its charm. British Telecom and Orason of Egypt are among new prospective suitors courting the Nigerian mobile network for a deal.

But coy Vee is being cautious, insiders said. “The management do not want to rush through a partnership process that could fail and dent the company’s reputation. A failed deal does no good to any company no matter how transparent the process was” a former Econet Wireless Nigeria (EWN) board member, who lost his seat in the integration process that followed EWN and Vodacom SA now failed pact, tells IT Edge in Lagos.

The anti vice commission Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced plans to probe the botched deal “ and see if corruption was involved.” But an undaunted Vee had consistently maintained that it had a transparent deal with Vodacom that failed as a result of
corporate disagreement and not corruption.

Vee’s prospective suitors include Virgin Mobile of UK owned by maverick British billionaire Sir Richard Bradson who already has Virgin Airline flying across Nigerian airspace. There were talks last year among senior Nigerian officials that Bradson plans to invest in Nigeria’s
moribund railways.

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