Cellphone group Vodacom will sell its 24,9% stake in iBurst parent company WBS Holdings. And the other WBS shareholders, including Blue Label Telecoms co-CEO Brett Levy, will have first right to bid for the stake.
That’s the word from Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys (pictured), who says the operator will sell the stake so that it is eligible to bid for spectrum in the 2,6GHz and 3,5GHz radio frequency bands.
Icasa is expected to make the spectrum available in the next few months, but has warned that anyone already holding frequency in those bands may not participate in the process.
Vodacom first acquired a stake in WBS in 2006, and assisted iBurst with building a network using the WiMax broadband wireless technology. Vodacom invested about R100m in building 100 WiMax base stations on behalf of WBS on the understanding that Vodacom would earn a share of revenue from WBS’s WiMax sales.
“We can’t apply for our own spectrum if we have a shareholding in an entity that has a spectrum licence,” says Uys. Vodacom is also likely to be prevented by regulators from taking a controlling interest in WBS.
“We will continue with our commercial arrangements with WBS,” Uys says.
Uys says there are no offers on the table yet from the other shareholders in WBS. However, he confirms they will have first right of refusal to buy Vodacom’s stake once the sale process gets underway. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral
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