Intercellular Plans comeback…To Transfer 70% Equity To Lari Com Investment

Intercellular Nigeria Plc, has held its 3rd Extra Ordinary General Meeting at the Function Room, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, on Wednesday the 14th of March 2012. The meeting was to pass a resolution to transfer 70% equity stake held by the Sudatel Group to new investors, Lari Com Investment Company Limited with the aim of positively turning the company around for commercial launch and into profitability.

The Chairman of Lari Com, Mr. Abdel Basit Hamza AlHassan, promised at the said meeting, to strategically harmonize the human capital and technical competencies required to fully bring the company to viability in the shortest possible time.

The Chairman of Intercellular Nigeria Plc, Mallam Ibrahim Aliyu, stated that he counts on their capability to bring the company to profitability by a full turnaround because they are a private sector company. The Chairman appreciated the efforts of Sudatel who have been able to take the new state-of-art Network to 80% completion with full prelaunch testing that already took place in Lagos and Abuja.

In 2007, Sudatel, telecommunications and Internet service provider based in Sudan, bought 70 per cent of Intercellular Nigeria Limited for $50 million following inactivity in the company months after the Sudanese telco, sealed the deal. Sudatel was hoping to use the acquisition of Intercellular to launch itself into the now legendary Nigerian lucrative telecom market. Although the promise of fund and expertise injection by Sudatel was never met nine months after the deal was struck.

Apart from $50 million for 70 per cent of Intercellular, Sudatel agreed to inject 500 million dollars into the Nigerian teleco within the next five years in order to beef up operations. This never happened and Intercellular, once a leading fixed wireless operator in Nigeria, never recovered from it and it led to a massive exit of some of its best hands. Though not much is know about  Lari Com Investments, telecom stakeholders in Nigeria are hopeful that with this new deal in place, it is hoped that Intercellular will experience a new lease of life.