October 18, 2024
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9mobile denies involvement in any bank debt, court order

By Upfrontdigital News 0 128 Views

By Favour Unukaso

Telecommunications firm, 9mobile has denied any involvement in the N55 billion debt owed to Keystone Bank by its minority shareholder, Teleology Limited, as it was not a party to the case in court.

   The company denied this in a statement, at the weekend, while responding to media reports claiming that 9mobile was ordered by a court to pay the N55 billion.

  “The Management of 9mobile wishes to inform the concerned public and critical stakeholders that, contrary to this misleading headline, Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Limited (EMTS), trading as 9mobile was neither a party to any suit nor affected by the order said to have been made against it as an entity.

    “The said story is not only false but also defamatory in its effect on the 9mobile corporate reputation. If the correspondents who filed the obviously syndicated news stories were anywhere near the court room during the proceedings leading to the issuance of the said order, they would have known that at no point was 9mobile a party to the suit in question. Rather, the action was appropriately classified and filed as, “Keystone Bank v. Teleology Nigeria Limited,” the firm stated.

   9mobile said for the avoidance of doubt, no judgement was made against it and the attempt to link “our corporate entity with a transaction by our minority shareholder, Teleology Nigeria Limited in its legal tussle with Keystone Bank, is false and maliciously misleading.”

    The management said 9Mobile is under new ownership with a 95.5 per cent controlling stake in the business and has not been found liable for the action of its minority shareholder in the suit in question.

    9mobile, which has about 11 million subscribers and five per cent market penetration, according to checks by this platform, said its business transformation programme has commenced and is poised to reclaim its place in the market.

      Reports have it that a Federal High Court, sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos ordered Teleology Nigeria Limited to pay the sum of N55.7 billion owed to Keystone Bank Limited.

     In an action filed on behalf of Keystone Bank Limited by its counsel, Bode Olanipekun, SAN, Teleology Nigeria Limited was accused of failing to service the loan facility which was deployed towards financing its acquisition of strategic assets in Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Ltd., doing business as 9Mobile Network.

    Olanipekun pointed out that despite the bank’s offer of restructuring the loan facility, Teleology failed to meet various conditions precedent, operation conditions, transaction dynamics, as well as other conditions stated in the restructuring letter.

     According to Olanipekun, rather than receive payment on the defendant’s debt liabilities, the plaintiff received a presentation from a company called PAC Limited proposing amongst others, a debt sale and/or acquisition by Bankruptcy Remote Special Purpose Vehicle in a proposed transaction structure akin to a conversion of the debt to equity without any immediate down payment or repayment of the outstanding huge indebtedness of the defendant.

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