Altech CEO Craig Venter believes East Africa remains a powerful opportunity despite the region dragging down the JSE-listed technology group’s results in the six months to the end of August.

The East Africa business reported an operating profit of just R1m for the period, with the effect of currency fluctuations excluded, which led to a loss.

“Nothing has changed in East Africa compared to 18 months ago when we made R190m in profit,” Venter says. “The window of opportunity has not closed, nothing like that. It’s the growth engine of Altech going forward.”

Venter blames a weak management team for the poor results. “They have not delivered what I wanted from that market and hence it has cost them their jobs and I have put in a whole new management team.”

Venter and new chief operating officer, former Telkom acting group CEO Jeffrey Hedberg, are personally leading the charge to turn around the fortunes of the East Africa operation, which includes Kenya Data Networks.

Altech owns and manages about 6 000km of fibre networks in the region. Because Internet penetration rates in Africa remain low compared to developed markets, Venter says there’s no reason the business shouldn’t enjoy “exponential growth”.

“I have been with Altech for 24 years and have run it for 14 or 15 years,” he says. “I can give you the assurance we will get [East Africa] back on track.”

He admits that Altech “underestimated the culture” in East Africa, which he says is “very different” to SA. “We’ve had to instil cost disciplines and it’s taken us longer to get that culture instilled in the business, but we feel we have now done that.” — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral