{"id":10901,"date":"2012-04-25T13:52:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T11:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=10901"},"modified":"2012-04-25T16:27:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T14:27:52","slug":"altech-expects-west-africa-disposal-in-6-8-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/10901\/altech-expects-west-africa-disposal-in-6-8-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Altech expects West Africa disposal in 6-8 weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Altech<\/a> CEO, Craig Venter<\/a> said on Wednesday (25 April 2012) that the group is six to eight weeks away from disposing of its ailing West Africa operation.<\/p>\n

Altech reported a marginal rise in revenue to R9.97 billion, from R9.65 billion before, and operating profit from capital items of R649 million, from R787 million.<\/p>\n

Adjusted headline earnings declined to 388 cents, from 529 cents in 2011.<\/p>\n

Venter attributed the decline in earnings to the groups’s under-performing East and West Africa operations.<\/p>\n

Venter said that West Africa had achieved eight years of profit but was at a mature stage.<\/p>\n

“Negotiations are in place and are at an advanced stage for a disposal of a 70% interest in our West African business.”<\/p>\n

He noted that two companies had expressed interest in the group and was confident that a deal would be concluded within eight weeks, “to alleviate further losses”.<\/p>\n

Venter told BusinessTech that Altech was targeting net asset value (NAV) plus a premium for West Africa, and hoped to achieve 20% of NAV.<\/p>\n

The company boss said that, should discussions to sell the business fall through, it would undergo a controlled auction process. “It will not sit around Altech group for 12 months,” Venter said.<\/p>\n

Operations in East Africa were hampered by currency fluctuations; high inflation rates and interest costs; sharp drops in broadband pricing; and network instability due to fibre and undersea cable breaks.<\/p>\n

“We are busy restructuring our East African operations into a more regional-focused business entity. We remain positive that the remedial measures that we have put in place in East Africa will have a positive effect in the future,” Venter said.<\/p>\n

Venter continued, saying that Altech would appoint a chief operating officer, “a key appointment within the next six to twelve months”. He added that the new appointment would likely be an internal employee.<\/p>\n

“The upside is that we have cleaned the slate, we are disposing of our West African business,” Venter concluded.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, chief technology officer and chief strategy officer, Willie Oosthuysen<\/a> said that Altech would target telematics through Altech Netstar in order to grow its geographical foot print. Cloud computing would also be a target area, through its subsidiary, Altech Autopage, he said.<\/p>\n

By 13h45, Altech’s shares were trading higher, up 0,29%, or 15 cents, to R52.40.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Altech posts R240m pre-tax loss on African units<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altech under the microscope<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

East and West Africa operations hurt Altech<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t bite the hand that feeds you<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Altech CEO, Craig Venter said on Wednesday (25 April 2012) that the group is six to eight weeks away from disposing of its ailing West Africa operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[311,867,26,2517],"class_list":["post-10901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-altech","tag-craig-venter","tag-headline","tag-willie-oosthuysen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10901"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10904,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions\/10904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}