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Tag: Pan African Towers

  • Court hears suit on Pan African Towers buy-out dispute

    Court hears suit on Pan African Towers buy-out dispute

    A shareholder-rights battle has erupted over the 2023 acquisition of Pan African Towers (PAT), with former Chief Executive Officer, Azeez Amida, suing private equity giants, Development Partners International (DPI), Verod Capital, and their limited partners at the Federal High Court in Lagos.

    At the heart of the suit, FHC/L/MISC/608/2025, is Amida’s claim that the investors reneged on a binding agreement to allocate him a five per cent equity stake under a management buy-out arrangement that facilitated the takeover of PAT.

    Justice Akintayo Aluko ordered parties to maintain the status quo pending applications—including an interlocutory injunction motion aimed at blocking potential sale or transfer of DPI and Verod’s stake in PAT until the matter is resolved.

    Amida’s legal team, led by Prof. ‘Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), alerted the court to a “deliberate plan” by the defendants to offload equity in PAT Holding Limited, the vehicle through which the acquisition was structured.

    The defendants, including DPI, Verod Capital Management Limited, Verod Capital Growth Fund III LP, African Development Partners III LP, and PAT Holding Limited, were absent and unrepresented in court.

    While the plaintiff is seeking orders to safeguard his alleged stake, the defendants filed an objection challenging competence of the suit.

    The judge declined to preemptively freeze the shareholding structure, stressing such relief will be determined when the motion is argued.

    The matter has been adjourned to January 15, 2026, for the court to consolidate and hear the pending applications.

    Amida, who became chief executive of PAT in 2022 amid financial distress, spearheaded a turnaround that saw revenue climb from N10 billion to N15 billion and EBITDA rise from N4 billion to N6.5 billion.

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    The company’s liabilities were also reduced, and key telco contracts renewed.

    With the company’s original shareholders seeking an exit, Amida proposed a local management buy-out to keep the company Nigerian-owned.

    He introduced DPI and Verod as funding partners, and the trio successfully closed a full acquisition of PAT.

    According to Amida, a term sheet—now before the court clearly documented his entitlement to a 5% equity stake as part of the MBO.

    He claimed that despite multiple post-closing meetings, the allocation was never finalised, and in November 2024 he was ousted as CEO.

    By then, PAT’s financial performance had reportedly quadrupled under his leadership. Amida insists the investors are unjustly withholding the equity promised to him, effectively breaching both shareholder and contractual rights.

    Further hearing has been adjourned till January 5, 2026

  • Pan African Towers announces appointment of Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta as Non-Executive Directors

    Pan African Towers announces appointment of Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta as Non-Executive Directors

    Pan African Towers (PAT) Ltd, Nigeria’s leading provider of digital infrastructure has announced the appointment of Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta as Non-Executive Directors, with effect from May 21st, 2024.

    Jyoti Desai, a former Group Chief Operating Officer of MTN, is a banking and telecoms professional with more than 35 years in the industry. Her achievements in banking, including a stint at Standard Bank, include driving largescale transformation in the banking industry to streamline operational cost and shifting focus to customer centric, segment-based value propositions. An experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry as well as fixed and mobile telecoms, she has more than 15 years’ experience in Africa and the Middle East.

    Desai is also skilled in startups in emerging markets, notably in the technical, commercial and operational aspects of the telecom business, and has more than 25 years’ experience in cost and operational transformation, including digital transformation, large scale project execution, Service Delivery, 3G, LTE, Mobile Communications, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), and more recently 5G.

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    Vivek Gupta is a first-generation entrepreneur, investor and telecoms veteran. As Founder and Director of iSON Group, he has built a dynamic ecosystem of businesses in IT & ITeS, BPO and Telecom Infrastructure and Services, employing 20,000+ resources, spanning 40 countries across Africa, Asia and Middle East. Gupta became an entrepreneur in 2008 as CEO of Zamil Infra, iSON’s first joint venture with the $8B Saudi conglomerate, Zamil, that specializes in build and managed services for telecom passive infrastructure.

    Under Gupta’s leadership, iSON Group diversified in Renewable energy, Digital infrastructure, Digital Healthcare and Health insurance sector. iSON Group has grown both organically and inorganically in last few years. He spent two decades creating an illustrious career within the telecom sector, working for multinationals such as Ericsson and IBM. In 2008, he was recognized by Fortune as “IBM’s All-Star Salesman” for contracting over $5 Billion worth of business and executing high value transformational and ‘out of box’ deals, particularly path-breaking strategic outsourcing deals with Bharti Airtel, Idea & Vodafone that have gone on to become one of the most successful business models for the company.

    “As can be seen from their profiles, both Desai and Gupta’s extensive global experience, and their contributions to the advancement of telecommunication, technology and infrastructural development in Africa and beyond make them invaluable assets for us at Pan African Towers, especially at this point in time where we are on a continuous improvement drive across our operations within Nigeria, and with a vision to grow our digital infrastructure base,” said Azeez Amida, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Pan African Towers.

    Pan African Towers was established in 2017 to capitalize on the growing demand for wireless communications across Africa and has since emerged as a prominent telecommunications and tower infrastructure provider.

    It would be recalled that in November last year, Pan African Towers announced a strategic investment from Development Partners International (DPI), a premier investment firm focused on Africa, and Verod Capital (Verod), one of the continent’s leading investment management firms. DPI and Verod are investing in PAT to fuel its continued growth and will work with management to build on the company’s recent achievements and reaffirm its position as Nigeria’s largest homegrown digital infrastructure provider.

    With this appointment, Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta joins Adefolarin Ogunsanya, Daniel Adeoye, Marc Stoneham and Azeez Amida on the board of Pan African Towers.