{"id":43570,"date":"2013-08-02T11:33:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T09:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=43570"},"modified":"2013-08-02T12:51:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T10:51:00","slug":"telkom-cell-c-deal-makes-no-sense-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/43570\/telkom-cell-c-deal-makes-no-sense-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom, Cell C deal makes no sense: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telkom<\/a> MD Attila\u00a0Vitai<\/a> says that a hypothetical deal between Telkom and Cell C<\/a>, that would see the former acquiring the latter, would not make sense for Telkom, according to a report by TechCentral.<\/p>\n

This came in response to comments made by Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig<\/a>\u00a0on Talk Radio 702 in July, who was addressing talk of consolidation in the telecoms industry.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on the radio station, the Cell C head confirmed that the mobile operator had addressed talks of consolidation with Telkom Mobile.<\/p>\n

However, according to a report by TechCentral,\u00a0Vitai says that a deal between the two operators would only make sense for one of them – Cell C – while it would simply move Telkom Mobile “from a loss-making fourth operator to a loss-making third operator”.<\/p>\n

Vitai\u00a0– reportedly speaking in his personal capacity – indicated that Cell C has been trying to “do a deal with Telkom” since he started at the company.<\/p>\n

“Their exit strategy is to sell to us or someone else. The investors want to exit and Knott-Craig is anxious to do a deal,\u201d\u00a0Vitai told TechCentral.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business is not really profitable and has huge debts. From Telkom\u2019s perspective, I\u2019m not sure [an acquisition] makes a great deal of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Atilla<\/a>

Atilla Vitai<\/p><\/div>\n

Knott-Craig has long said that there is no room for four mobile operators in South Africa, and that consolidation between firms was inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cMargins are thinning and smaller operators\u2019 ability to compete is being hampered by lack of scale,\u201d he previously told BusinessTech.<\/p>\n

However, Vitai is of the opinion that consolidation in the form of merging with Cell C would not substantially alter Telkom Mobile’s strategic positioning in the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need time to leverage the competitive advantage that we have in terms of spectrum,\u201d\u00a0Vitai said. “We are growing our data customer base and revenues…We need time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, both former Telkom CEO, Pinky Moholi<\/a>, and current CEO, Sipho Maseko<\/a>, dismissed claims that the company was looking at a merger deal with Cell C.<\/p>\n

More about Cell C and Telkom<\/h3>\n

Cell C confirms Telkom Mobile merger talks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s modest mobile numbers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C looking for partner: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

No Cell C deal on the table: Telkom CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telkom MD Attila Vitai says that a deal between Telkom and Cell C, that would see the former acquiring the latter, would not make sense for the telco, TechCentral reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[43,6429,42,6427,26,1075],"class_list":["post-43570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-atilla-vitai","tag-cell-c","tag-consolidation","tag-headline","tag-telkom-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570","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=43570"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43576,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43570\/revisions\/43576"}],"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=43570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}