Fidelity Bank has $56m exposure to Etisalat Nigeria

Fidelity Bank has exposure of around N17.5 billion naira ($56 million) to Etisalat Nigeria, the Nigerian lender’s investor relations team said on Thursday.
The Nigerian arm of Abu Dhabi-listed telecoms company Etisalat is in talks with local banks to renegotiate the terms of a $1.2 billion loan it took out four years ago after missing a payment.
It would be recalled that it was in the news last week that a consortium of foreign and Nigerian banks on Wednesday took over Etisalat Nigeria as the telecommunications company failed to pay a loan totalling $1.72 billion (about N541.8 billion) it was granted in 2015.
The Nigerian banks are Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank were named as the creditor to the troubled telecommunications company.
The action of taking over the company was said to become imperative since the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) was not able to broker a peaceful resolution between Etisalat Nigeria and the banks.
According to sources close to the banks, the loan involved a foreign-backed guaranty bond and was given to Etisalat to finance a major network rehabilitation and expansion of its operational base in Nigeria.
After failing to service its debt since 2016, the banks reported the company to the Central Bank of Nigeria and the NCC.‎
The source explained that Etisalat management was given the option of filing for bankruptcy but the telecoms firm refused to take the advice. This option would have required the banks just a management to oversee the telecoms firm’s operations.
According to the source, “While all these were happening, the banks concerned had thought that the NCC would have used its powers as a regulator to bail the telecom out, or advise the company accordingly, but it became obvious that the NCC wasn’t so interested. It was merely buying time for Etisalat.”
Nevertheless, workers at Etisalat blamed the inability of the company to fulfil its financial obligation to the banks on the current economic recession in Nigeria.
According to a source close to one of the banks said: “While the management continued to blame the challenge on the economic recession, the banks replied that the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) regulations demanding immediate cut down on the rate of their non-performing loans give them no other option. We saw this coming and that is why most of our colleagues, in the last six months, kept resigning.”
NCC was said to have approved the take-over on Tuesday, March 7, when all the parties could not reach an agreement.