The week in review

Thursday, 07 December 2006 00:00 Written by Laura Franz

AT HOME

NASPERS will sell a further 7.5% stake in its pay television unit to attract more black investors. The sale of the holding in Africa is to take place in the first quarter of next year.

ABOUT 80% of cellphone users trying to switch networks and take their numbers with them have had their requests refused. A Virgin Mobile spokesman said the two largest operators, and , were refusing to let customers go either because they owed the network money or because their numbers had been suspended for contractual reasons. Virgin claims to have won more than 40% of the customers using mobile number portability to hop networks. - Business Day

INVESTMENT holding company Sekunjalo`s diversification into technology and innovation driven sectors has paid of handsomely. Posting results for the year ended August, Sekunjalo announced a 644% surge in headline earnings to R66 million, while operating profit more than doubled to R92 million. - Business Day

SA`S NEW second fixed-line operator, , expected to start offering domestic voice and data services to business in January, a senior company official said. But it said it would not launch voice and Internet services for consumers until the second quarter, slightly later than an initial March target. - Business Day

SHARES of computer software company SilverBridge Holdings fell 15% in their debut on the JSE`s alternative exchange. Last week Monday, the stock slid 60c to R3.40.

BUSINESS solutions group Labat Africa has warned it expects this week to report a substantial decline in earnings and headline earnings a share for the six months to August.

DOCUMENT management company Metrofile is being recapitalised through a rights offer that has seen an issue of 188.9 million new shares oversubscribed. The move will raise R142 million for Metrofile, which was saddled by debts when its parent company MGX collapsed. - Business Day

MTN has given options to buy 2.42 million of its shares to 13 of its managers, including CEO , who was awarded the right to buy 516 400 of the shares at R71 each, below last Friday`s closing of R73.50. They can buy 20% of the stock in 2008 and the final 30% in 2011. - Bloomberg

FIXED-LINE operator may appeal to the Competition Tribunal in March after the recommended against it buying . The dates would be decided at a "prehearing" at the tribunal last Friday, said , a spokesperson for Telkom. - Bloomberg

PAY TELEVISION licence applicants are waiting with bated breath as the Independent Communications Authority of SA sifts through 18 applications for subscription broadcasting to end the monopoly of MultiChoice. And there could be more applicants. Icasa called on interested parties that intended lodging written submissions and comments to do so by January 10. - Business Report

THE RESERVE BANK approved Control Instruments` acquisition of Pi Technology. The approval was unconditional and the transfer of the business and the payment of the 5 million purchase price would take place this week. - Business Day

IT COMPANY Lechabile has acquired a majority stake in application solutions developer Knowledge Dimension. Lechabile said it was a deal that would firmly position the black-owned firm as one of SA`s leading IT service and solution providers.

CELCOM GROUP, which listed on AltX last week, said its prelisting private placement had been successful with the 23 million shares almost ten times oversubscribed. CEO Stefano Brachini said there had been a lot of interest in the shares from institutions and asset managers, as well as foreign investors. - Business Day

UNISA will become a participant in the Innovation Hub`s CoachLab Leadership Programme for next year`s intake of postgraduate students. This was announced at the programme`s graduation ceremony by , manager of the Maxum Business Incubator at the Innovation Hub, who oversees the CoachLab activities.

INTO AFRICA

AFRICA: Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe are to benefit from the latest initiative by US-based Hewlett Packard and the United Nations Education and Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to reverse the brain drain. The project will help to improve scientific research by establishing new interconnectivity systems in university laboratories and research centres in Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe. - Highway Africa News Agency

ANGOLA: Angola`s Prime Minister, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos, said he considered last week Tuesday a memorable day with the launch of the government portal, which kicks off the electronic governance. - Angola Press Agency

KENYA: Multichoice South Africa has linked up with two of Kenya`s television stations which will now be available on . Private station NTV and public broadcaster Kenya Broadcasting Corporation were uplinked last week at a cost of $400 000. Kenya becomes the latest country in Africa to join DSTv after South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda. - The East African

LIBERIA: AWLI/Libercell says it`s launch of GPRS, EDGE and MMS services make`s Liberia the third African country, after South Africa and Tanzania, to use the technology.

NAMIBIA: Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, announced Cabinet`s approval of the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) market for competition. His ministry was authorised to proceed with the signing of licensing and tariffs for VSAT. - The Namibian

NAMIBIA`S fixed-line mon-opoly, Telecom Namibia, entered the mobile phone market using its wireless CDMA technology to launch a mobile service branded Switch. Telecom Namibia and the Namibia Communications Commission are heading for a showdown following the launch. According to the regulator, Switch is illegal as only mobile operators such as Mobile Telecommunications Limited and Powercom have licences to provide mobile-phone services.

NIGERIA: SecureID Ltd, a chip-card solutions provider, has successfully implemented Nigeria`s first e-government multi-application smart cards for Federal Capital Territory Administration. The Minister of Federal Capital Development Authority, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai, said his ministry launched the smart-card project to replace the old plastic identity card used by its 20 000 work force. - This Day

UGANDA: Dubai-based Internet Protocol television, JumpTV, has established its Africa offices in Uganda. Jump TV, which delivers programmes to households through broadband connection, will enable Ugandans to subscribe to local TV and FM radio stations of their choice. - The Monitor

ABROAD

SIEMENS, Europe`s biggest engineering company, says it is still in talks about a sale of its enterprise telecoms unit after a newspaper reported last week that efforts to sell the business might have ended.

POLICE RAID telecoms equipment manufacturer Siemens at its fixed-line telecoms unit in Munich. The investigation is in its early stages but, according to German media reports, it could involve sums in excess of US$128 million being used for bribes to win company contracts. Although the contract at the heart of the investigation is an Olympic Games contract, Siemens Telecoms contracts under investigation include deals in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well as Indonesia and Vietnam. - Balancing Act

NINTENDO said that it has sold more than 600 000 units of its next-generation Wii console to consumers in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. At a rate of nearly one per second sold continuously since the November 19 launch, Wii has instantly become a $190 million business in the Americas. - vnunet.com

THE WORLD`S richest nations are guilty of dumping its obsolete electronics in the developing world in a manner that could cause health and environmental damage for decades to come, a UN conference has heard. - vnunet.com

has agreed to acquire Vallent Corporation, a privately-held supplier of network performance monitoring and service management software for wireless service providers. Financial details of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals, were not disclosed.



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