Finally, Helios Acquires Multi-Links After Months of Tussle

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.

Following the resolve of the long time issue that trailed the acquisition of the brand by another 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.

According to Multi-Links Telecoms Limited, the long awaited transition leading up to HIP’s acquisition of Multi- Links caused uncertainty about the brand that impacted Multi-Link’s brand; stating that the 100 per cent acquisition by HIP, Multi-Links would be repositioned to deliver much better services that it has always been known for.

Multilinks Nigeria, a telecommunications company founded in 1997 to provide handheld and fixed wireless telephone service integrated with high speed Internet service among other services became cash strapped and suffered gradual decline in the telecommunications market, particularly in the face of bourgeoning GSM services in the country.

It had to quickly re-strategise and in 2007, sold majority shares to Telkom South Africa for $410 million. However, Telkom itself after spending up to 9.8 billion rand on the network, could not turn the fortunes around and also had to divest its interest in the company on June 28.

The new acquisition by Helios who has been managing the company under contract, may have ended a legal battle that halted the purported sale of the company to Visafone Communications Nigeria a few months ago.