140 ex-yuMobile staff report Monday for work at Safaricom

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”.

“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.

READ: Safaricom and Airtel to absorb 175 yuMobile staff

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.