{"id":38004,"date":"2013-05-17T08:52:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T06:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=38004"},"modified":"2013-05-17T10:21:05","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T08:21:05","slug":"vodacom-mtn-courting-neotel-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/38004\/vodacom-mtn-courting-neotel-purchase\/","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom, MTN courting Neotel purchase?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Industry speculation suggests that\u00a0Vodacom<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0MTN<\/a>\u00a0are in separate discussions with\u00a0Neotel<\/a>\u00a0to acquire the fixed line operator.<\/p>\n

One industry source said that Vodacom, MTN and\u00a0Dimension Data<\/a>\u00a0were all in discussions with Neotel to potentially acquire a controlling stake in the company. Dimension Data (through\u00a0Internet Solutions<\/a>), however, is rumoured to have fallen out.<\/p>\n

Another well placed industry source confirmed the acquisition rumours, saying that the discussions between Neotel and MTN, and Neotel and Vodacom are at an advanced stage. He added that the discussions to date have been positive, and that a deal is definitely possible.<\/p>\n

Neotel holds great value for Vodacom and MTN, partly because of its well-established fibre network and its valuable frequency spectrum.<\/p>\n

Neotel shareholding<\/h3>\n

Neotel\u2019s current shareholders are\u00a0Tata Communications<\/a>\u00a0(68.5%), Nexus Connection (19%) and Communitel (12.5%).<\/p>\n

When Neotel was launched in August 2006 as South Africa\u2019s second national operator (SNO), it had the following shareholders:\u00a0Eskom Holdings<\/a>\u00a0(15%),\u00a0Transtel<\/a>\u00a0(15%), Nexus Connexions (19%) and SEPCO (51%).<\/p>\n

SEPCO was made up of the Tata Group of India, which held a 51% stake in SEPCO, and two private consortia, Communitel and Two Consortium.<\/p>\n

Eskom Holdings, Transtel, and Two Consortium sold their stakes to Tata Communications, giving the Indian company a 68.5% stake in Neotel.<\/p>\n

All parties involved mum on the rumoured negotiations<\/h3>\n

It is understood that strict non-disclosure agreements prevent the parties from discussing the acquisition negotiations.<\/p>\n

Neotel said that it is not company policy to comment on market rumour and speculation. \u201cNeotel is experiencing good growth and will soon be announcing its results as well as the company direction for the next financial year,\u201d the company added.<\/p>\n

Vodacom spokesperson\u00a0Richard Boorman<\/a>\u00a0said that \u201cwe explore investment opportunities on a regular basis, but for obvious reasons I have to decline to comment on any specific companies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nik Kershaw<\/a>, executive for investor relations at MTN Group, said that \u201cin line with internal corporate governance, as well as JSE requirements, MTN does not comment on market speculation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dimension Data also did not comment on whether it was in discussions with Neotel as rumoured.<\/p>\n

More on Neotel<\/h3>\n

Neotel turns EBITDA positive<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s keeping Neotel\u2019s CEO awake at night?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Neotel doubles customer base<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Smartphone shake-up in SA from Neotel<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Industry speculation suggests that Vodacom and MTN are in separate discussions with Neotel to acquire the fixed line operator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":6882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[94,5865,26,97,28,261,5864,2570,27],"class_list":["post-38004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-dimension-data","tag-eskom-holdings","tag-headline","tag-internet-solutions","tag-mtn","tag-neotel","tag-nexus-connection","tag-tata-communications","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38004","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=38004"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38008,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38004\/revisions\/38008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}