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Helios Investment Partners Announces Acquisition of Multi-Links

By on November 24, 2011

The battle initiated by Helios Towers against Multi- Links over an attempted breach of agreement reached by both parties for the construction of telecommunication Base Transceiver Station (BTS) for Multi-Links has paid off, as Helios finally acquires Multi-Links.

Helios Investment Partners (HIP) has announced its formal acquisition of 100 per cent equity interest in Multi-Links, a CDMA telecom company operating in Nigeria from its previous shareholder, Telkom South Africa.

Having resolved the long time issue that trailed the acquisition of the brand by another Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operator in Nigeria, HIP finally decided to announce the takeover of the Multi-Links.

HIP, which is one of the largest Africa-focused private investment firms, has assets under its management in excess of $1.9 billion.

The Chairman, Multi-Links Telecoms Limited, Martin Dirk while speaking to newsmen at a press conference in Lagos recently, said the long awaited transition leading up to HIP’s acquisition of Multi- Links caused uncertainty about the brand that impacted Multi-Link’s brand.

According to him, the 100 per cent acquisition by HIP, Multi-Links would be repositioned to deliver much better services that it has always been known for.

“We will continue to drive this product with utmost intent to be the best. We will continue to invest cutting edge technologies that will make our brand more desirable and better accepted.

“Multi-Links essentially run two telecommunications services business units which include, a mobile business utilising CDMA technology which has more than one million subscribers and a fiber optic network offering national data transmission capacity and limited metro and last mile connectivity.” He said.
Dirk added that significant investment, including total capital investment in excess of $1 billion has been made into this network, increasing the footprint of the network more than six fold over the last four years.

According to him, Multi-Links constructed its terrestrial fibre optic network connecting 21 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja at a cost of over $150 million; “Multi-Links’ terrestrial fibre optic network spanning 8,232km provides access to several circa tower sites across several major cities in Nigeria.” Dirk said.

He also stated that while multi-Links initially focused on the construction and expansion of its terrestrial fibre optic network rather than on selling capacity on the network itself to the potential customers, currently, Multi-Links terrestrial fibre optic networks’ business model entails selling bandwidth to carriers and enterprise customers.

Dirk further stated that Multi- Links is currently focused  on improving its performance through cost efficiency, selective penetration and targeting of medium to high-end customer acquisition and retention.

Multi-Links which is still in the Nigerian market and is currently refocusing on serving the 22 service areas such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Onisha, akwa, Enugu, Makurdi, Abuja Jos, Bauchi, Kastina, Kano, Kaduna, Ilorin, Ibadan, Oshogbo, Benin amongst others, is currently being refocused to achieve improved and cost efficient performance, he reiterated.

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