{"id":821571,"date":"2025-04-23T16:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=821571"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:37:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:37:29","slug":"the-government-chases-away-investments-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/821571\/the-government-chases-away-investments-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The government chases away investments in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Remgro chief executive Jannie Durand said they prefer not to work with the government and that the Competition Commission makes deals nearly impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durand shared his opinion about their challenges with the government and its institutions during Remgro\u2019s Capital Markets Day on Monday, 14 April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said they were cautiously optimistic about the reforms happening in South Africa. However, the regulatory environment is a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are trying to manage these uncontrollable. We are engaging with the government and regulatory bodies, even when we disagree with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Remgro CEO said their challenges with South Africa\u2019s regulatory authorities influence their capital allocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe prefer not to be in business with the government. Doing acquisitions in South Africa to achieve inorganic growth is very difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe regulatory environment makes it very difficult, and getting deals passed by the Competition Commission is becoming increasingly challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the onerous conditions of the Competition Commission and the government related to acquisitions make these deals unviable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is a concern considering the investment-friendly climate that you should have in South Africa to create jobs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenging regulatory environment and business-unfriendly policies in South Africa have been widely criticised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in 2021, the Competition Commission blocked Emerging Capital Partners from buying Burger King in South Africa due to its lack of black ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business Unity South Africa CEO Cas Coovadia and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) criticized the Competition Commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They highlighted that it would slow down investment and merger activity in South Africa and make it difficult for black investors to exit companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coovadia raised concerns that the Competition Commission started to engage in issues related to black economic empowerment, which was the ambit of the BBBEE commissioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom and Maziv deal halted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Remgro CEO Jannie Durand <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Remgro\u2019s dismay with the regulatory authorities is unsurprising considering the debacle related to the Vodacom-Maziv deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2021, Vodacom entered into a deal to buy a stake in the fibre assets of Maziv, which owns Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa (DFA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maziv is owned by CIVH, which is, in turn, majority-owned by Remgro, which has an effective 57% stake in the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa approved the deal in November 2022, a year after it was announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Commission, however, dragged its feet on this issue. In August 2023, it recommended to the Competition Tribunal to block the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Tribunal then conducted weeks of public hearings, which concluded at the end of September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A month later, it blocked the transaction. It said Vodacom was South Africa\u2019s biggest mobile network and Maziv was one of the biggest fibre infrastructure players, raising concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Act stipulates that the Tribunal should provide the reasons for its decisions within 20 business days of announcing them. This did not happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took around half a year for the Competition Tribunal to provide reasons, significantly delaying the legal battle around the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Appeal Court is set to hear Remgro and Vodacom\u2019s case against the ruling on 22 to 24 July 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means a final ruling on the deal would only occur around four years after Vodacom and Remgro initially signed the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much time has elapsed since November 2021 that the deal would have to be renegotiated, as Maziv is a very different company than it was four years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Durand mentioned, a four-year regulatory process makes it unattractive for companies like Remgro to make acquisitions in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remgro chief executive Jannie Durand says they prefer not to work with the government and that the Competition Commission makes deals nearly impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":810798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[14563,1516,4205,2591,27,8081],"class_list":["post-821571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-civh","tag-competition-commission","tag-jannie-durand","tag-remgro","tag-vodacom","tag-vumatel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821571","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=821571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821574,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821571\/revisions\/821574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}