{"id":23190,"date":"2012-09-27T23:02:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T21:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=23190"},"modified":"2012-09-28T08:03:43","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T06:03:43","slug":"altechs-venter-buoyant-over-east-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/23190\/altechs-venter-buoyant-over-east-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Altech’s Venter buoyant over East Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Altech<\/a> CEO, Craig Venter<\/a> says he is \u201cfeeling buoyant\u201d over the group\u2019s operations in East and West Africa, having signed a document to dispose of the latter, while the chief executive still believes there is potential for growth in East Africa.<\/p>\n

Altech clawed back some of its earlier losses in trade on the JSE<\/a> on Thursday (27 September), adding 1.43% to R42.60, having slumped 6.67% to R42 on Wednesday (26 September).<\/p>\n

Altech reported\u00a0a R420 million loss in results from operating activities for the six month period ending August 2012, from a R283 million profit in 2011.<\/p>\n

Revenue increased by 6.8% to R5.2 billion, and its operating profit before capital items was 13.5% lower than that of the prior period, mainly due to losses incurred in Altech\u2019s operations in East and West Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking into account the continued losses in East and West Africa, the board has decided to further impair the goodwill and carrying values of certain property, plant and equipment and intangible assets within its East and West African operations. Principally due to these impairments, there was a loss before tax of R485 million,\u201d Altech said.<\/p>\n

In a presentation to the media on Thursday, Venter stressed that, while there was no quick fix for East Africa, he, along with his executive team, had worked hard to turn things around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the management team involved to a point that we almost lived there. Rectification\u2019s have (are) been done, but not financially,\u201d Venter said. \u201cHowever, we know the business is strong, or much stronger than what it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Venter confessed that, in hindsight, Altech had probably underestimated some of the risks involved in East Africa, pointing to high cost implications and high volatility in the region.<\/p>\n

He noted that, following a 51% acquisition by the group in 2008, Altech\u2019s division in East Africa recorded two profitable years of R30 million and R100 million before declining.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to our East African operations, we have initiated discussions concerning the introduction of partners into these operations and will advise shareholders of progress in this regard, in due course,\u201d Venter said.<\/p>\n

The group chief said that, as of July 2012, Altech had initiated a process for partnerships with \u201cbig\u201d network operators.<\/p>\n

Venter said that the impairments incurred by Altech over the interim period solely related to East and West Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other 33 companies outside of East and West Africa performed extremely well,\u201d Venter said. He said further that, without the East and West Africa drain, investors could expect to Altech\u2019s operating profit margin to rise up to 9%.<\/p>\n

\u201cAltech will return to its prior records, and profit patterns prior to the East Africa pressures,\u201d Venter said.<\/p>\n

“I am more confident now than I was six months ago,\u201d he said in terms of the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

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

Altech shares slump amid interim loss<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altech offloads West Africa operation<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altech, Altron caned by East and West Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altech West Africa talks still ongoing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altech expects West Africa disposal in 6-8 weeks<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

East and West Africa operations hurt Altech<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Altech CEO, Craig Venter says he is “feeling buoyant” over the group\u2019s operations in East and West Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[311,867,26],"class_list":["post-23190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-altech","tag-craig-venter","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23190","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=23190"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23196,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23190\/revisions\/23196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}