{"id":26847,"date":"2012-11-19T11:24:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T09:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=26847"},"modified":"2012-11-20T15:04:32","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T13:04:32","slug":"no-cell-c-deal-on-the-table-telkom-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/26847\/no-cell-c-deal-on-the-table-telkom-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"No Cell C deal on the table: Telkom CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telkom<\/a> CEO Nombulelo Moholi<\/a> dismissed speculation that a deal between Telkom Mobile<\/a> and Cell C<\/a> is on the cards, saying that the Telkom board is not looking at any deal between the two operations.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a conference call announcing Telkom\u2019s interim results for the six months ended September 2012, Moholi said that there may be merits in a deal between Telkom Mobile and Cell C, but that there is not a formal transaction on the table.<\/p>\n

“At this time there is no formal transaction on the table\u2026 it is nothing that the board is listening to at this time,” the outgoing chief executive said.<\/p>\n

Telkom CFO Jacques Schindeh\u00fctte<\/a> said that he is not too optimistic that a merger between Telkom and Cell C will significantly benefit Telkom.<\/p>\n

Schindeh\u00fctte explained that Cell C can benefit Telkom through brining more and lower frequency spectrum for network deployment, bringing a national mobile network to Telkom and offer additional management expertise.<\/p>\n

He added that SA\u2019s third operator could possibly offer a shorter period for Telkom Mobile to break even; however, the Telkom CFO said that the benefits which Cell C could bring to them are not enough to stop Telkom\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n

Schindeh\u00fctte said that co-operation between the two companies, rather than a merger, would currently make more sense.<\/p>\n

Schindeh\u00fctte said that the two companies can benefit from working together to lower interconnect rates \u2013 the biggest stumbling block for Cell C and 8ta to take on MTN<\/a> and Vodacom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> told BusinessTech in October that market consolidation is inevitable. \u201cMargins are thinning and smaller operators\u2019 ability to compete is being hampered by lack of scale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsolidation will help smaller operators compete more effectively with larger players and it is only then that customers will benefit from tariff reductions, network availability and quality of service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, there will be some form of consolidation or partnership in the industry in the near future. However, any decisions on consolidation or future partnerships involving Cell C would be for our shareholders to decide upon,\u201d Knott-Craig said.<\/p>\n

Business Day also reported in October that two high-level meetings between senior executives from Telkom and Cell C are said to have taken place earlier this year, and \u201cthe two parties are now said to be working on the finer details of a potential merger\u201d.<\/p>\n

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

Telkom and Cell C merging?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom shares rally 5.5%<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Investors knocking on Cell C\u2019s door<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

More confusion over Telkom future<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom future in cabinet hands<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telkom CEO Nombulelo Moholi said that the Telkom board is not looking at any deal between Telkom Mobile and Cell C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24323,"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":[34],"tags":[43,26,2198,65,1075],"class_list":["post-26847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-headline","tag-nombulelo-moholi","tag-telkom","tag-telkom-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26847","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26847"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26853,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26847\/revisions\/26853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}