MTN South Africa CEO Mteto Nyati will be jumping from the mobile operator to electronics group Altron, where he will serve as the company’s new CEO, it announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Nyati has served as CEO\u00a0of MTN South Africa since July 2015, and previously held executive positions at IBM and Microsoft South Africa.<\/p>\n
Nyati will assume responsibility as Altron Chief Executive no later than 1 July 2017. Current CEO, Robbie Venter, will step down as Chief Executive in due course.<\/p>\n
Venter\u00a0will remain on the Altron Board as a Non-Executive Director.<\/p>\n
According to Mike Leeming, Chairman of the Altron Board, the appointment of Nyati followed a rigorous recruitment process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Altron Board embarked on a global search for a suitable candidate with the necessary global leadership experience and business orientation with a solid track record in the ICT sector,” he said.<\/p>\n
The appointment marks a move away from Altron being a family-run business, though Venter said that he and the Venter family remained fully committed to the Altron Group.<\/p>\n
In a trading statement published on SENS, Altron advised shareholders that a reasonable degree of certainty exists that the company\u2019s basic earnings per share for the financial year (ended 28 February 2017) are expected to be a loss of no more than 60 cents per share, against the previous financial year\u2019s loss of 259 cents on a total earnings basis (at least 77% better than the prior year).<\/p>\n
This is based on a preliminary assessment of various impairment reviews which will only be finalised during the year-end process, the company stressed.<\/p>\n
Headline earnings per share for the financial year end are expected to be a profit of no less than 50 cents per share on a total operations basis as against the previous financial year\u2019s loss of 145 cents, it said.<\/p>\n