Nigerian Government Making Another Attempt to Shut-Down Nitel:

The Nigerian government is to make another attempt at shutting down its loss making landline operator, Nitel and its mobile subsidiary, Mtel after a court blocked its previous liquidation attempt a couple of weeks ago.

The government has been trying to liquidate the firm since early 2012.

Various attempts to privatise the company or turn around its fortunes have stalled, but despite that there is still political support for yet another attempt to rescue the ailing telecoms operator.

Local company, Transcorp bought a 75% stake in 2006 in Nitel for $750 million during an earlier privatization sale, but the government reclaimed the stake in 2009 following several years of neglect.

Since then there have been three aborted attempts to sell the company, with the last failing in June 2011 when the Omen International Consortium failed to pay a required US$105 million deposit on the sale.

Telkom South Africa Denies Talks Over $3 Billion Bid from Mystery Investor:

South Africa's dominant landline network, Telkom SA has refuted media reports that it has been approached over a potential $3 billion investment in its mobile subsidiary.

Earlier in the week, BusinessTech reported that an unnamed company based in Asia had approached Telkom over an option to either buy the tower assets, or take a stake in the company.

The unrealistic number of $3 billion was being talked about, for what is the country's smallest mobile network. The sum would in fact be double the entire company's market capitalisation.

The report claimed that the unnamed company aimed to buy up to 1,600 Telkom towers and then build an additional 8,400 towers.

In a statement, the company said that it has "not received any proposal from a South East Asian company for the sale of its mobile towers business or an investment of $3 billion."

It did confirm that a previously announced review of the mobile network is ongoing, and that it is talks with "various parties to consider best options for the business".