MB Technologies co-founder Leo Baxter has sold his 45% stake in the IT distribution business to Investec Bank for an undisclosed sum. The company says Baxter has decided to focus all his efforts on his medical recovery following a polo accident in 2007 which left him paralysed. The treatment has produced encouraging results and Baxter has regained some movement.
Telkom will pay US$80m (R604m) to settle its nine-year long legal wrangle with Telcordia Technologies. In 1999, Telcordia signed a contract with Telkom to supply a customer-care solution to SA’s fixed-line business. Telkom terminated the contract two years later, saying the US-based business was in breach of contract by not providing the product to the agreed specifications.
MTN says it will have to start investigating options to improve cash returns meaningfully to shareholders as the emerging market telecommunications sector matures.
That’s the shock assessment of the cellular group’s outgoing president and CEO Phuthuma Nhleko. Nhleko will address the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday afternoon, giving shareholders a peek at what they can expect to see at its interim results presentation next month.
Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has dismissed allegations in a newspaper report that he may suspend department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala as “false, spurious and malicious”. Nyanda’s spokesman Tiyani Rikhotso says in a statement that the minister “exercises political oversight over the department and gives it policy direction in line with his statutory and constitutional mandate”.
Johannesburg- and London-listed technology group Datatec is on track to produce revenues of between US$4,1bn and $4,2bn by the end of its financial year. In an interim management statement released to shareholders on Thursday, the company said the recovery of global markets had driven an improved half-year for the technology business over the same period last year.
The proposed acquisition of Dimension Data by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) is more about the Japanese telecommunications group than about the SA-based IT firm. That’s the view of consulting company Frost & Sullivan, which says NTT has embarked on a “fairly aggressive acquisition drive over the past two or three years”.
Africa’s largest mobile phone operator MTN is planning to sell 4% of the company’s equity to black investors in what could prove to be the largest broad-based empowerment deal in SA’s telecommunications industry. MTN’s empowerment deal was expected to happen last year with the unwinding of the Alpine Trust-owned investment company Newshelf 664.
The proposed acquisition by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) of Dimension Data will give the SA-headquartered IT group’s Internet Solutions (IS) division access to one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. IS MD Derek Wilcocks, reacting to the news of the proposed R24,4bn all-cash deal, says it’s “incredibly positive” for IS as it will make the Didata unit part of one of the “strongest global networks, with data centres around the world”.
Japanese telecommunications group, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT), is buying SA IT group Dimension Data for £2,1bn (R24,4bn). The offer represents a R5bn premium to Didata’s value on Wednesday, before the offer was announced. Didata has already received commitments to support the deal from more than half its shareholders, including Didata directors, Venfin and Allan Gray.
Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda is planning to suspend department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala, according to a newspaper report. Business Day reports on Thursday that Nyanda may suspend Mohlala following “repeated disagreements over tenders she refused to sign”.
