MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita has described the competition appeal court’s decision last week to approve the sale of a co-controlling stake in fibre operator Maziv to Vodacom as “very positive and constructive”.
After more than three-and-a-half years of regulatory wrangling, Vodacom South Africa was last week finally given the green light to acquire a co-controlling 30-34.95% stake in Maziv, the company that owns Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa, down from 30-40% previously per an agreement with the Competition Commission.
Maziv will now get billions of rand in new capital flowing into its coffers that will allow it to speed up the roll-out of fibre network infrastructure across South Africa, including into townships – a stated objective.
The appeal court on Thursday gave its consent to the deal after the Competition Commission changed tack, initially recommending that the deal be blocked by the Competition Tribunal, and then recommending recently its approval after the merging parties agreed to further changes aimed at lessening the negative impact on competition in the fibre market.
The tribunal had agreed with the commission’s earlier position regarding the deal and decided to block it. That prompted the merging parties to approach the competition appeal court for relief.
Now MTN’s Mupita has welcomed the approval of the transaction, saying market consolidation is long overdue — and that the approval will benefit MTN should it decide to buy assets in future.
‘Pro-consolidation’
“Europe has benefited considerably from a wave of market consolidation,” he said. “More gets done with fewer players. This is a capital-intensive industry – it’s like the oil majors, it’s like mining. MTN has always been pro-consolidation, even if it’s benefiting some of our competitors.
“From our side, we have already been running a strategy of taking out some of the digital infrastructure assets and decoupling these from the rest of the business,” Mupita said. “We are in process of carving out fibre and data centres. That process is one we were doing anyway. We will continue to progress with that as part of our strategy looking beyond 2025.”
Read: Capex clash: Vodacom, MTN and Telkom battle over network supremacy
He did not comment on the role, if any, MTN intends playing in further consolidation of the fibre market in South Africa. Talk of a deal to acquire a strategic equity stake in Telkom’s wholesale business, Openserve, appears to have cooled, with Telkom Group CEO Serame Taukobong making it clear last year that the sale of a stake in Openserve was no longer being considered. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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