Author: Gugu Lourie

Crystal Partners, a newly launched female-owned and led South African investments entity, wants to be the premier choice partner for global and local companies seeking to establish and expand their footprint on the African continent. The investment firm has appointed sixteen specialists to seek agriculture, energy, technology & innovation, health, and mining opportunities. The company has been established as the Alternative Investment arm of the Sandton-based pan-African diversified investment company Beryl Group, focusing on proprietary investments. It holds equity interests in a balanced portfolio of medium and large capitalised companies spanning three core sectors: Logistics and Rail, Coal, and Financial…

The MoMo, a mobile money service, for MTN is gaining traction with its South African subscribers. Since its relaunch in South Africa in January 2020, MoMo has performed well, with approximately 3.1 million registered users on 31 March 2021, said MTN. “The focus remains on scaling the MoMo business and deepening financial inclusion through driving adoption as well as innovative and relevant service offerings,” the company informed investors today. Also read: Why the Relaunch of MTN’s MoMo is More Than a Mobile Money Service in SA? MoMo allows users to purchase airtime, prepaid electricity, and pay for their municipal bills…

MTN has received bids for the sale and lease back of some of its 13 000 South African telecommunications towers. Last December, MTN announced it was looking to sell and lease back part of its tower portfolio. “MTN SA continues its work in exploring a potential sale and leaseback of its passive tower infrastructure,” said Ralph Mupia. “Having issued invitations to offer expressions of interest in this regard, MTN SA has received over 20 responses and has engaged financial advisors to assist with the process. “We anticipate that this process will be concluded by the end of Q3 2021.” Under…

MTN Group announced today that it has established its first FibreCo in Zambia as part of its Ambition 2025 strategy to spin off fibre business. In March, MTN announced plans to demerge its Fibre and FinTech business and to bring third party investors to unlock value trapped in the company. MTN has 85 000 km of fibre network across the African continent and intends to seek partners to expand its footprint. The company will need about $500 million investment over the medium term to invest in the expansion of its fibre business into an open-access network. “GlobalConnect’s fibre development and separation projects are also…

MTN Group said on Wednesday that it expects to spin off its FinTech Business before the end of the first quarter in 2022. In March, MTN announced plans to spin off its FinTech Business. For more read: MTN Set To Spin Off Fibre, FinTech Businesses, Invite Third Party Investors “The FinTech separation project is progressing well, in line with our Ambition 2025 strategy,” Ralph Mupita, MTN Group CEO, said on Wednesday. “MTN Rwanda recently received a license to operate a separate fintech entity bringing the number of separated entities to 12 (out of 16 fintech markets). “We continue…

MTN Group announced on Wednesday that it had lost 1,7 million customers in the quarter ended 31 March 2021 hit by new SIM registration regulations in Nigeria. The company said excluding the Nigeria subscribers were up 3.4 million. MTN now has 277.9 million subscribers. On Monday, MTN Nigeria announced that its subscribers dropped by 5 million to 71.5 million due to the effects of customer churn and the regulatory restrictions on new SIM sales and activations. Last December, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) directed the NCC to embark on…

UK-based EV startup Arrival is working with Uber to design and build an affordable, purpose-built electric vehicle for the ride-hailing industry. The startup said the Arrival Car is expected to enter production in Q3 2023. Arrival will collaborate with Uber drivers in the design process over the coming months to ensure the Arrival Car reflects the needs of professional drivers and their passengers, with the final vehicle design expected to be revealed before the end of 2021. The Arrival Car will address the global need to shift ride-hailing and car-sharing services, with over 30 million estimated drivers across the ride-hailing…

Sony Interactive Entertainment has made a minority investment in Discord, a popular gaming-focused chat app. Sony will integrate the gaming-focused chat app with PlayStation’s own built-in social tools. “At PlayStation, we’re constantly looking for new ways to enable players around the world to connect with one another, form new friendships and communities, and share fun experiences and lasting memories,” Jim Ryan, President & CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment said. “It’s in this spirit that we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Discord, the communication service popularized by gamers and used by more than 140 million people every month around…

Standard Bank has launched a service status page to keep customers up to date about the status of banking services and offerings, following the extended disruption to banking services. Yesterday, the bank said it had identified a hardware issue that impacted its Mobile App, Internet Banking and ATMs. The issue has now been resolved and services across all banking channels are now fully restored. We apologise for the frustration that such disruptions cause you, the bank said on Twitter. Standard Bank said today it has launched a new service status page to give you real-time status of our banking services…

Dell Technologies is selling Boomi, a provider of cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS), to investment firm Francisco Partners, and private equity firm TPG, for $4 billion (R57 billion). This is part of a strategy by the company to shave off its debt problem created when they bought EMC in 2015. In April, Dell announced plans to spin off its 81% equity ownership of VMware, forming two standalone public companies. The tech firm acquired VMware as part of the $67 billion (R963 billion) EMC acquisition in 2015. Under terms of the planned spin-off, VMware will distribute a special cash dividend of $11.5 –…