{"id":46964,"date":"2013-10-01T17:58:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T15:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=46964"},"modified":"2013-10-01T18:00:07","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T16:00:07","slug":"neotel-vodacom-a-r10-billion-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/46964\/neotel-vodacom-a-r10-billion-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Neotel, Vodacom a R10 billion deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A deal between Vodacom<\/a>\u00a0and Neotel<\/a>\u00a0could be valued at as much as R10 billion rand ($994 million) according to a report in Bloomberg, citing a person close to the\u00a0negotiations.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0operators confirmed on Monday (30 September)\u00a0that they have entered into exclusive discussions regarding a potential acquisition of 100% of the shares of Neotel by Vodacom SA, ending months of speculation.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg reported \u00a0on Tuesday (1 October) that\u00a0Vodacom’s proposed\u00a0takeover of Tata Communications’ South Africa unit would\u00a0include up to $500 million (R5 billion) of debt, citing\u00a0two people familiar with the negotiations.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0deal\u00a0could\u00a0be\u00a0valued\u00a0as\u00a0high\u00a0as\u00a010\u00a0billion\u00a0rand\u00a0($994\u00a0million),” Bloomberg said, citing a source.<\/p>\n

The media firm noted that Neotel’s parent company, Tata Communication acquired a 2.5% stake in the operator last year, valued at R149 million (US$14.9 million), thus taking its\u00a0total share in Neotel to\u00a068.5%, and valuing the\u00a0company\u00a0at R5.9 billion (US$596 million).<\/p>\n

\u201cExcluding the wholesale carrier business, a Neotel deal\u00a0would triple the size of Vodafone\u2019s enterprise business in South\u00a0Africa,\u201d telecommunications analysts at the Lisbon-based\u00a0brokerage Espirito Santo said in a research note. \u201cWe\u00a0expect similar deals to boost Vodafone\u2019s fixed-line capability\u00a0and also a continued push into enterprise fixed and mobile\u00a0services globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May,\u00a0Neotel<\/a>\u00a0CEO,\u00a0Sunil Joshi<\/a>\u00a0 announced that the group had achieved its first operating profit since it launched in the country in 2006.<\/p>\n

Joshi said that the group had turned earnings before interest and taxes positive for the year ended March 2013, having first reported its ebitda positive status in 2012.<\/p>\n

UBS AG analyst Chris Grundberg, told Bloomberg that the\u00a0price hinges on regulators approving the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould Vodacom be able to keep\/use Neotel\u2019s spectrum,\u00a0particularly under the Vodacom brand?\u201d Grundberg said in a note\u00a0to clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would be the regulatory\/competition\u00a0commission view of Vodacom buying a supplier to both MTN Group and Cell C?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares in Vodacom climbed 1.6% to R126.40 rand at close of play on the JSE, giving the company a market cap of\u00a0R188.1 billion.<\/p>\n

More on Neotel and Vodacom<\/h3>\n

Vodacom, Neotel confirm talks<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Neotel reaches earnings milestone<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom, Neotel deal pegged at R5 billion: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom CEO\u2019s strategy explains Neotel acquisition plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Why buy Neotel?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom last man standing in Neotel acquisition?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A deal between Vodacom and Neotel could be valued at as much as R10 billion rand ($994 million) according to a report in Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":43700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[6768,26,261,2898,2570,27],"class_list":["post-46964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-chris-grundberg","tag-headline","tag-neotel","tag-sunil-joshi","tag-tata-communications","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46964","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=46964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46971,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46964\/revisions\/46971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}