{"id":36158,"date":"2013-04-19T09:57:52","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T07:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=36158"},"modified":"2013-04-19T10:38:38","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T08:38:38","slug":"investors-shy-away-from-net1-bee-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/36158\/investors-shy-away-from-net1-bee-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Investors shy away from Net1 BEE initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Net1 UEPS Technologies<\/a>, a provider of alternative payment systems,\u00a0says that its Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) option has expired unexercised.<\/p>\n

Net1 recently won a supreme court case against\u00a0Absa<\/a> subsidiary,\u00a0AllPay Consolidated\u00a0Investment Holdings to continue providing social grants in the form of smart cards\u00a0in South Africa in a contract worth R10 billion.<\/p>\n

AllPay had questioned the tender process.<\/p>\n

However, Net1 is also currently being investigated by the\u00a0US Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division and the SEC, regarding possible acts of corruption in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The firm had created a one-year option to purchase 8,955,000 shares with an exercise price of $8.96 per share granted to Business Venture Investments, a special purpose vehicle that represents a consortium of black South Africans, community groups and the Net1 Foundation. However, this option expired unexercised, the group said on Friday (19 April).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company and the BBBEE consortium are evaluating various alternatives to ensure the company\u00b4s empowerment objectives will be met,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

“The protracted legal battle with Absa subsidiary AllPay regarding the Sassa (SA Social Security Agency) tender, recently decided in favor of Sassa and Net1 by a unanimous ruling of the full bench of the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, and the existence of the DOJ\/SEC investigations have thwarted any chance that BVI may have had to raise the funds required to exercise the option.<\/p>\n

“I am disappointed that our attempt to embrace South African economic empowerment policies has failed due to circumstances beyond our control,” said Dr. Serge Belamant<\/a>, chairman and CEO of Net1.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mosehla, who represented the BBBEE consortium, has expressed his continued commitment to Net1 and will remain a director on the Net1 Board.<\/p>\n

“Net1 remains committed to these critical transformative policies and we hope to conclude a new transaction in the near future which will achieve a similar result. We would like to thank Mr. Mosehla for his contributions and continued commitment to the Company despite this unfortunate setback,” Belamant said.<\/p>\n

Net1 has a\u00a0primary listing on the Nasdaq and a secondary listing on the JSE.<\/p>\n

More on Net1<\/h3>\n

Absa, Net1 battle isn\u2019t over<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Net1 wins supreme court case over Absa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Court grants leave to appeal in Sassa case<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Net1 set for legal action against AllPay<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Net1 shares slump 55% on corruption probe<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Net1 under FBI investigation for corruption in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Net1 bemoans damage to its reputation<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Net1 UEPS Technologies, a provider of alternative payment systems, says that its BBBEE option has expired unexercised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[29,4104,2175,26,4774,4766,785,1474],"class_list":["post-36158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-absa","tag-allpay","tag-department-of-justice","tag-headline","tag-net1-ueps-technologies","tag-sa-social-security-agency","tag-sassa","tag-serge-belamant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36158","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36161,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36158\/revisions\/36161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}