Commenting on the Competition Tribunal’s ruling to disallow the Vodacom/Maziv merger, Peter Takaendesa, Head: Equities at Mergence Investment Managers, said that the prohibition will have implications for other market consolidation transactions that were waiting for the outcome of this case. It is quite likely that Vodacom will deploy more of its capital outside South Africa or prioritise repaying debt should it not win the case on appeal. Regarding the wider trend, both Vodacom and MTN have realised that it may be too late to build large national fibre networks of their own and are therefore looking to buy minority stakes in existing fibre network operators to optimise capital expenditure and share infrastructure.
Despite some market ‘overexcitement’ about AI, Naspers is bullish about making more bets
The latest Naspers/Prosus financial results show a jump in profitability across the group’s ecommerce portfolio and Tencent growth acceleration. Commenting