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Firm secures S$400 million in funding commitments, aims to raise S$1 billion by spectrum auction.
OMGTel officially presented itself as a contender for Singapore’s fourth mobile licence on Thursday, having secured funding commitments for S$400 million (€262 million) to contribute to the acquisition of spectrum, according to local press reports
The firm, which is a unit of in-building wireless software solutions provider and system integrator Consistel, has named a new CEO in Bill Amelio, a former chief executive of Lenovo, and has appointed OCBC Bank as its financial advisor, the Business Times reported.
The paper quoted Consistel chairman Masoud Bassiri as saying that the S$400 million in funding forms part of an overall S$1 billion the company aims to raise before Singapore’s spectrum auction, due to take place in the third quarter of this year. Bassiri said the company is confident it will secure commitments for the remainder of the money by June.
Singapore has reserved a spectrum package for new entrants, consisting of 60 MHz of airwaves in the 900 MHz and 2.3 GHz bands, which carries a reserve price of S$35 million (€22.5 million). It will be auctioned off before the remaining spectrum in those and other bands is put up for sale to all-comers, including Singapore’s three existing mobile network operators.
Regulatory body the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said recently that it has seen strong interest in the spectrum from would-be new market entrants, but did not share names or numbers.
OMGTel’s biggest competition for the new licence appears to be fibre operator MyRepublic, which counts French businessman Xavier Niel among its investors.
Based on the Business Times report, OMGTel appears to be confident that should it win the auction it will be able to establish itself as a credible player in Singapore.
Its objective is to be one of the top two telcos in Singapore, Bassiri said, but did not disclose further details about its strategy or planned pricing models.
