{"id":43961,"date":"2013-08-11T09:41:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T07:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=43961"},"modified":"2013-08-12T10:02:38","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T08:02:38","slug":"shareholders-to-mtn-zakhele-wheres-our-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/43961\/shareholders-to-mtn-zakhele-wheres-our-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Shareholders to MTN Zakhele: Where&#8217;s our return?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shareholders in <a title=\"MTN\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1640-MTN-Group\">MTN<\/a>&#8216;s empowerment scheme, <a title=\"MTN Zakhele\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/9505-MTN-Zakhele\">MTN Zakhele<\/a>, grilled the company at its AGM, questioning why they had not received a dividend.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report in the Business Times, while MTN Zakhele is seen as one of the most successful empowerment schemes in the telecoms industry, shareholders are yet to receive a cent back.<\/p>\n<p>This is in contrast to shareholders in <a title=\"Vodacom\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1639-Vodacom\">Vodacom<\/a>\u2019s similar scheme, <a title=\"YeboYethu\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/9670-YeboYethu\">Yebo Yethu<\/a>, which have enjoyed dividends right from the start.<\/p>\n<p>MTN Zakhele is, to date, South Africa\u2019s largest empowerment scheme in the telecommunications industry.<\/p>\n<p>The R8.2 billion MTN Zakhele transaction was concluded in 2010 as part of MTN\u2019s ongoing efforts to further its BBBEE objectives in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme was funded through:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>R1.6-billion brought in by around 121,000 ordinary people;<\/li>\n<li>Almost R1.3-billion in MTN donations;<\/li>\n<li>Vendor funding of R3.2-billion from MTN;<\/li>\n<li>And investment banks which paid in R2.2-billion in return for class A and class B preference shares.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Why no dividend?<\/h3>\n<p>According to the Business Times, although Zakhele was given dividends of R632-million last year &#8211; thanks to its 4% stake of MTN &#8211; the funds were swallowed by running costs and the need to repay its funders.<\/p>\n<p>Zakhele chairman, <a title=\"Thulani Gcabashe\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/9506-Thulani-Gcabashe\">Thulani Gcabashe<\/a>, fielded questions from shareholders on resolutions on refinancing plans to Kgolo Qwelane, the scheme\u2019s financial adviser.<\/p>\n<p>Qwelane explained that the company&#8217;s plan is to raise third party debt by issuing further Class A cumulative redeemable preference shares.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme aims to then use the funds to purchase shares in MTN, whose shares will be used to reduce a portion of the notional vendor finance (NVF) balance owing by MTN Zakhele to MTN.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Yebo Yethu<\/h3>\n<p>According to the Business Times, Vodacom&#8217;s Yebo Yethu scheme operates by paying dividends directly to shareholders (after dedcuting running costs).<\/p>\n<p>Dicidends reached a reported R20.2-million this year, compared to R6.5-million in Yebo Yethu\u2019s first financial year, the paper said.<\/p>\n<p>Notional funding is serviced by deducting a portion of dividends declared by Vodacom before the balance is paid over to Yebo Yethu.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on MTN<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to MTN Zakhele still mum on trading details\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/43162\/mtn-zakhele-still-mum-on-trading-details\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">MTN Zakhele still mum on trading details<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MTN FY adj HEPS seen 41.8% \u2013 46.8% higher\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/7191\/mtn-fy-adj-heps-seen-41-8-46-8-higher\/\"><strong>MTN FY adj HEPS seen 41.8% \u2013 46.8% higher<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MTN moves to assure investors over CFO\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/42764\/mtn-moves-to-assure-investors-over-cfo\/\"><strong>MTN moves to assure investors over CFO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Why MTN CFO Nazir Patel resigned\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/43067\/why-mtn-cfo-nazir-patel-resigned\/\"><strong>Why MTN CFO Nazir Patel resigned<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MTN invests in $75 million tech fund\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/42005\/mtn-invests-in-75-million-tech-fund\/\"><strong>MTN invests in $75 million tech fund<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shareholders in MTN&#8217;s empowerment scheme, MTN Zakhele, grilled the company at its AGM, questioning why they had not received a dividend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":43166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,28,6391,27,6470],"class_list":["post-43961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-mtn-zakhele","tag-vodacom","tag-yebo-yethu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43961","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=43961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43986,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43961\/revisions\/43986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}