{"id":233077,"date":"2018-03-20T15:40:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=233077"},"modified":"2018-03-20T15:41:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:41:19","slug":"telkom-raises-r1-billion-to-invest-in-its-network-and-take-on-mtn-and-vodacom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/233077\/telkom-raises-r1-billion-to-invest-in-its-network-and-take-on-mtn-and-vodacom\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom raises R1 billion to invest in its network and take on MTN and Vodacom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Telkom raised R1 billion ($83 million) in its first debt issue of the year as South Africa\u2019s biggest landline provider looks to invest in its network and take on rivals including MTN Group and Vodacom Group.<\/p>\n<p>After a five-year hiatus, Telkom started selling debt again in 2017 and has raised R4.3 billion from nine bonds in 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>The Pretoria-based company has significantly increased capital expenditure in recent years to focus on its mobile-phone business, which reported a maiden profit in 2016 as landline use declines.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom has sold bonds to diversify its funding sources and reduce the cost of borrowing, a spokesman said Tuesday. The company is almost 40% owned by the South African government.<\/p>\n<p>While Telkom\u2019s mobile-phone business trails MTN, Vodacom and Cell C in Africa\u2019s must industrialized economy, the unit is adding customers and needs investment to cope with the additional traffic.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s put some strain on the company\u2019s cash reserves. The operator is also expanding in broadband services, especially to corporate customers, following the acquisition of Business Connexion in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Monday\u2019s bond sales included a R654 million floating-rate note maturing in March next year and a R346 million bond with a 7.84% coupon, maturing on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom shares rose 0.4% to R52.29 as of 1:59 p.m. in Johannesburg, valuing the company at R26.7 billion.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/232795\/sa-mobile-share-in-2018-vodacom-vs-mtn-vs-cell-c-vs-telkom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SA mobile share in 2018: Vodacom vs MTN vs Cell C vs Telkom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telkom raised R1 billion ($83 million) in its first debt issue of the year as South Africa\u2019s biggest landline provider looks to invest in its network and take on rivals including MTN Group and Vodacom Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":233079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,28,65,27],"class_list":["post-233077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233077","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233083,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233077\/revisions\/233083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}