Corporate News
A former Yu agent shop in Nairobi. Safaricom has integrated ex-yuMobile staff into its workforce. PHOTO | FILE
By MUGAMBI MUTEGI, pmutegi@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Safaricom paid yuMobile Sh7.2 billion last year to acquire the Indian-owned telco’s assets, frequency spectrum, transmission towers and IT equipment as well as 150 employees.
- Airtel Kenya paid Sh4 billion to the global conglomerate Essar to acquire its customer base and use the brand name for at least two years.
- The bulk (70) of the staff will be absorbed into Safaricom’s technical team which focuses on both network and hardware equipment.
About 140 former yuMobile employees are set to start work at Safaricom
on Monday, as part of the Sh11 billion joint buyout that also saw
Airtel take over the exiting rival’s customers a fortnight ago.
The move by Safaricom to integrate the ex-yuMobile employees
into its workforce is yet another significant step toward closing the
multi-billion shilling transaction.
Airtel Kenya integrated 2.55 million yuMobile customers (and 25 staff) into its network two weeks ago.
“The former yuMobile employees are officially
joining the company on February 2, bringing the acquisition to a close,”
said Safaricom’s corporate affairs director Nzioka Waita in an
interview.
Safaricom paid yuMobile Sh7.2 billion last year to
acquire the Indian-owned telco’s assets, frequency spectrum,
transmission towers and IT equipment as well as 150 employees.
Airtel Kenya paid Sh4 billion to the global
conglomerate Essar to acquire its customer base and use the brand name
for at least two years.
The bulk (70) of the staff will be absorbed into
Safaricom’s technical team which focuses on both network and hardware
equipment.
About five will be deployed in M-Pesa business
while the rest will go to business support, HR, risk, marketing and
strategy departments.
Safaricom said they had all been absorbed “at similar or higher positions than they had at Essar”.
Safaricom said they had all been absorbed “at similar or higher positions than they had at Essar”.
“The new staff members will first go through a
week’s orientation before being deployed to their stations,” said Mr
Waita. The new staff will be based at Essar House in Westlands, which
was also part of the acquisition.
Essar, which entered the Kenyan market in 2007, had a total of 197 employees, excluding expatriates, working locally.
However, 22 of them opted not to be absorbed by
either teleco and chose to retire on a severance pay of 60 days for
every completed year of service and a bonus pay of minimum one month
salary.
Ten of the 150 employees slated to join Safaricom
also elected to resign. The transfer is a big relief for yuMobile
workers, who went to court early last year seeking to block the sale of
the company as their fate was still unknown.
Safaricom says it has also started “re-farming” the
yuMobile network to boost its frequency spectrum to accommodate its
growing subscriber base, which stood at 21.8 million as at last
September.
“This process means that Safaricom will be able to
use the additional capacity from the sale to boost its coverage in
congested areas such as Nairobi,” said Mr Waita.
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