{"id":22962,"date":"2012-09-26T01:50:31","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T23:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=22962"},"modified":"2012-09-26T08:32:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T06:32:15","slug":"delays-putting-telkom-behind-competitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/22962\/delays-putting-telkom-behind-competitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Delays putting Telkom behind competitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

A continual delay by government to decide the future of Telkom<\/a> is putting the company further behind its competitors in the industry, an analyst has warned.<\/p>\n

Having blocked a deal between Telkom and Korea based KT Corp<\/a> in June, Cabinet asked the minister of communications,\u00a0Dina Pule<\/a>, to report back to it about all the options that were available for Telkom, in three months.<\/p>\n

That deadline passed at the end of August, and while the DoC<\/a> insisted that a shortlist of three strategic options had finally been presented to cabinet last week, a spokesperson told media at a post-cabinet briefing that Cabinet did not discuss\u00a0Telkom\u2019s fate at the most recent meeting on Wednesday, 19 September.<\/p>\n

It is not clear when Cabinet will release a statement to outline Telkom\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

Government owns 38.9% of Telkom \u2014 51% if the Public Investment Corporation\u2019s (PIC<\/a>) stake is included.<\/p>\n

Spiwe Chireka<\/a>, program manager of telecoms at research and analysis firm, the International Data Corporation (IDC<\/a>) told BusinessTech: \u201cThis is another thorn in Telkom’s side that can be avoided. The DoC needs to understand that in a highly dynamic market such as the one we have, time to market on anything is of the essence.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne can only wonder what additional impact (in addition to a falling share price) delays by the minister will have on Telkom. It is no secret that Telkom needs a cash injection like yesterday, something that KT would have provided, and further delays are putting Telkom further behind its competitors in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday (21 September), Telkom dropped an earnings bombshell. The group advised that its headline earnings per share from continuing operations for the six months ending September 2012 was expected to be at least 65% lower than the prior comparative period.<\/p>\n

HEPS from continuing operations for the six months ended September 2011 stood at 191.7 cents, 35.5% lower than in 2010.<\/p>\n

Telkom advised shareholders that basic earnings per share from continuing operations for the six months ending 30 September 2012 is expected to be at least 45% lower than in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lower earnings are mainly attributable to an increase in the provision for Competition Commission fines relating to transgressions of the company dating back approximately 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operational performance for the period up to 31 August 2012 has been further characterised by flat revenue and operating cost that escalated just below inflation,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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

Telkom future in cabinet hands<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom options not tabled before Cabinet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom shares off 5.3%, awaits fate<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom delivers earnings warning<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom rallies 5% on nationalisation rumour<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom to be sold at R24 a share, nationalised: analyst<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A continual delay by government to decide the future of Telkom is putting the company further behind its competitors in the industry, an analyst has warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[1087,1083,1444,26,1781,65],"class_list":["post-22962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","category-trending","tag-department-of-communications","tag-dina-pule","tag-doc","tag-headline","tag-kt-corp","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22962","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=22962"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22970,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22962\/revisions\/22970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}