Neotel chief corporate services officer Tracy Cohen has resigned.
News of her resignation comes on the same day that Vodacom announced that it was in talks with Neotel and its shareholders — led by India’s Tata Communications — about a “revised transaction structure” related to the mobile operator’s proposed R7bn acquisition of the company.
The Competition Tribunal said on Monday morning that it would postpone a public hearing into Vodacom’s proposed R7bn acquisition of Neotel in light of the renewed discussions.
However, TechCentral understands that Cohen resigned several weeks ago, before the latest developments came to the fore, and that her exit is unrelated to the renewed discussions between Vodacom, Neotel and Neotel shareholders.
Cohen, who previously worked as a councillor at communications regulator Icasa, confirmed to TechCentral that she would join law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr on 1 March 2016, but she declined to comment further.
Neither Vodacom nor Neotel were prepared to comment on what had sparked the renewal of discussions between the parties.
Vodacom said in a voluntary statement on the JSE’s stock exchange news service on Monday that the outcome of the new discussions with Neotel would “directly impact the extent of the approval being sought from the Competition Tribunal” as well as the scope of the tribunal’s hearing.
The developments come a month after Neotel director in charge Kennedy Memani said that the company was close to wrapping up an investigation into possible bribery that led to the suspension in July of its CEO, Sunil Joshi, and its chief financial officer, Steven Whiley. It is not clear if the two events are related.
“We are at the tail end of the disciplinary process,” Memani said on 14 October. “We are hoping to make an announcement in the next two to three weeks. We are interacting with both the CFO and CEO. After that is done, we will definitely make an announcement.”
Joshi and Whiley were placed on “special leave” at the end of July following publication of a report in the Mail & Guardian that said Neotel may have made dodgy payments to a company called Homix in order to secure a telecommunications contract worth R1,8bn from state-owned Transnet. — (c) 2015 NewsCentral Media