Nigeria extends Nitel bid deadline again to Feb 15

LAGOS Jan 22 (Reuters) - Nigeria on Friday shifted the deadline for the submission of bids for its former telecoms monopoly Nitel, which has been struggling to find new investors for nearly a decade.

Nigeria's privatisation agency, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) said it extended the deadline to Feb. 15 from Jan. 22 after the 14 suitors for the fixed line operator and its subsidiaries asked for more time to submit their financial and technical bids.

"The investors' request was premised on their inability to conduct effective due diligence as a result of striking Nitel/MTEL workers' protesting the non-payment of their salaries," the BPE said in statement.

The bureau invited expressions of interest in July for a minimum of 75 percent stake in Nitel and each of its units, which include mobile arm MTEL, the South Atlantic Terminal Underwater cable (SAT-3) and analogue cellular subsidiaries STAC and CDMA.

The agency said it pre-qualified 14 investors, including the Nigerian arms of South Africa's MTN Group (MTNJ.J: Quote) and Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) (ETEL.AD: Quote), MTNL India (MTNL.BO: Quote), a group involving Spain's Telefonica (TEF.MC: Quote) and local firm Globacom, who paid a $25,000 fee each for bidding documents.

Nigeria initially set an Aug. 28, 2009 deadline for expressions of interest, but has repeatedly shifted it after the invitation for bids received little international interest.

Nigeria is one of the world's fastest growing markets, adding 7 million new subscribers in the last quarter of 2008 alone and has overtaken South Africa to become the biggest on the continent.

But the government has struggled to sell Nitel mainly because of the shambolic state of its fixed line infrastructure and huge debt.

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(Reporting by Tume Ahemba; Editing by Randy Fabi and Toby Chopra)