Business Connexion Group (BCX) has announced that the Competition Tribunal of South Africa has approved its proposed merger with Telkom South Africa (Telkom)
However, approval from the competition tribunal is not the final word on the deal. Final approvals need to be sought from South Africa’s Takeover Regulations Panel and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Telkom launched a strategy in April 2013 that was meant to improve its performance, and an important component of the strategy was to grow beyond its core business of connectivity by expanding into ICT services. This is what made BCX an attractive proposition.
BCX is one of the largest ICT services providers listed on JSE, when measured in terms of turnover, total assets and staff compliment. The company employs more than 6,700 people across Africa, with offices in various African countries as well as in the UK and Dubai, and the company generates revenue in the range of US$475mn per annum.
“BCX has very strong capabilities in managed IT Infrastructure including data centres, cloud-based services and application development and the merger will enable Telkom to expand its existing offerings whilst, at the same time, providing scale in IT services, which will help reinforce Telkom’s core connectivity business and enhance Telkom’s convergence strategy”, said Isaac Mophatlane, group CEO at BCX.
Speaking about the way forward, Mophatlane added that he believes that the merger will advance the strategies of both Telkom and BCX and that working together with Telkom will improve both their customer value propositions through a greater ability to provide integrated end-to-end ICT solutions and a more global and competitive offering, particularly on the African continent.
