Leadership (Abuja)
17 September 2007
Abuja — The low performance of the Transnational Corporation (Transcorp) in its first outing to raise money from the capital market has been blamed on the controversial environment under which the company raised the fund.
Managing director of the company, Mr Tom Iseghohi, who made the remark said that Transcorp raised money in an environment where there was a lot of controversy whic had nothing to do with the company but had to do with innuendos and political environment.
He said that Transcorp as a start up has in less than three years through equity and debt raised one billion dollars. He said that step taken by the company was an amazing accomplishment anywhere in the world.
He explained that fund raising have two approaches: institutional and retail investors, adding that it was only 250,000 ordinary Nigerians that put their money into the company.
Iseghohi stated that the company set out to raise N60 billion but at the end the actual subscription went to 36 per cent.
On the other hand, he said that the telecommunication industry is growing fast, stressing that it has a million of new subscribers every month. He further pointed out that although the rate at which the industry growth was very fast but infrastructure is still not enough to support the pace at which it is growing. He further pointed out that in a couple of cities where Mtel was tested, the speed at which people accepted the SIM card was unbelievable.
He stated that Mtel was set to comeback with 1.2 million subscribers within one year because the market place is ready to accept whatever the company could offer.
He said that it was not the intention of the company to be the biggest telecommunication in the country but to be the best in terms of quality and as well provide the best value to the customers which were the two things that are still a huge problem in the industry.
He said that consumers of telecoms in the country are still dissatisfied with the quality of service and price offered to them, adding that Nigeria telecommunication space is wide open and there was a lot to grab by new ones.
On the future of the company, he said that it has been successfully restructured into a technology and telecommunication divisions.
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