The professional services firm KPMG was easily the runway winner of the bid to become transaction advisers to the Nigerian government in respect of its ground-breaking infrastructure initiative, InfraCo, BusinessDay has learnt.
Three firms – Mckinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group, BCG and KPMG submitted final bids, which were considered at separate sessions on March 1, 2021, by a committee that included a Special Adviser to the President, senior officers from the African Finance Corporation and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) sent apologies.
The report of the team of five was thereafter sent to the presidency for the final decision.
The three bids were scored on four basic measurements – Technical criteria involving infrastructure sector focus, deliverability plus track record and finally the size of the fee requested.
BusinessDay learnt that KPMG presented two strong points that swung the decision in its favour.
Firstly, the KPMG team included two gentlemen who were active in setting up Clifford Capital, which funds most infrastructure projects in Singapore, and the two KPMG people will play leading roles in the discharge of KPMG’s function for InfraCo.
Not surprisingly, KPMG scored 89 percent in respect of the technical criteria where the other two scored 82 percent and 79 percent in the very competitive bid.
KPMG was judged by the assessors to have “strong infra focus; strong project track record having worked on a number of projects.
“The core team has worked on several infra funds thus have relevant experience; work plan was very clear with clear outputs for each level and timelines; the team is clear with clear breakdown of work schedules.”
Secondly, KPMG also came first by a mile when it came to the fee charged.
While others put their fees in hundreds of millions with one above a billion naira, KPMG’s fee was more realistic at less than N80 million for the entire project.
KPMG are auditors to the central bank, but a senior presidency official said this was irrelevant to the choice given that one of the bidders worked to set up AFC where the CBN has a 42-percent equity and other professional services firm work for the apex bank from time to time.
InfraCorp already has in its kitty N1 trillion equity contribution from the CBN, the AFC and the NSIA in a 70:20:10 shareholding structures.
Three law firms have already been chosen for the legal work of InfraCo and they are Kenna Partners along with Ukiri & Lijadu and Olaniwun Ajayi.
