After a massive selloff on Monday, shares of South Africa’s biggest listed telecommunications companies continued to trade lower into Tuesday.
Browsing: Blue Label Telecoms
Shares of Vodacom Group and MTN Group slumped after South Africa’s two biggest mobile phone companies were ordered to step up efforts to lower data prices within the next two months or face prosecution.
Shares in Telkom soared shortly after markets opened in Johannesburg on Friday as investors took cheer from the fact that the it won’t be burdened with rival Cell C’s debt problems.
The share price of Telkom tumbled on Monday morning while Blue Label Telecoms rose after MTN South Africa and Cell C announced they had signed a massively expanded roaming deal.
Telkom on Friday informed investors that it is pursuing an acquisition of Cell C. So, why didn’t Telkom just say so in the first place? By Duncan McLeod.
On paper at least, an acquisition of Cell C by Telkom makes sense. But Cell C is arguably in worse shape today than it was two years ago when Telkom tried and failed. By Hilton Tarrant.
Telkom wants to buy Cell C in a plan that will include reducing its troubled rival’s debt and renegotiating contracts with suppliers, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Not enough attention is paid to the extent to which Vodacom, the country’s largest mobile operator, leverages resources from (and executes the global strategy of) parent Vodafone.
Blue Label Telecoms, which bought a 45% stake in Cell C in 2017 for R5.5-billion, has said in its annual report that it is “extremely disappointed” in the performance of the mobile operator.
Blue Label Telecoms co-founders and co-CEOs Brett and Mark Levy are stepping down as non-executive directors of the Cell C board with immediate effect.