Author: Gugu Lourie

Universal Partners is merging three tech talent specialists Xcede, TechStream and Etonwood to create a £100m (R1.9 billion) revenue company. The merger has been funded by private equity firm Universal Partners and Investec Bank. The merged firms will share a group parent company branded as TechStream Group, headquartered in London and operating across its current global office network in New York, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Singapore, Malaga and Cape Town. It will employ 220 people. Founded by Paul Beeke, TechStream is an internationally recognised human capital business. The merged company will specialise in talent for cloud transformation, digital transformation, cybersecurity, data…

Neela, a KwaZulu-Natal based business, is demanding that Mobax settle an outstanding debt of R22 million, which includes interest, storage, and loss of income until 31 January 2020. Mobax, a little-known company, is a subcontractor to Vodacom. It is a management company that subcontract work to providers that deploy and maintain generators, refuels and services them – for managed services – that power the mobile phone company’s base stations. Mobax replaced Swedish telecom giant Ericsson in January 2018 as a management company. Neela, a Port Shepstone-based company, has been contracted to Vodacom since 2011. Neela signed a contract with Ericsson…

Vodacom has added 484 000 customers in South Africa in the fourth quarter of the 2019 calendar year, supported by a successful Summer campaign and the mobile operator also revealed plans to launch 5G. “A highly successful Summer campaign, which delivered 334 million free rewards to 17 million customers, contributed to an uplift in activity across our customer base,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom’s CEO. “This increase in data customers and usage is evidence of our success in transforming data pricing in South Africa. Notable contributions from our Financial Services and Enterprise businesses saw service revenue in South Africa rise by…

Five years ago Telkom retrenched skilled workers whom they promised to help set up as small businesses that would be contracted to the giant telecoms company. Telkom in 2015 created the Independent Field Technicians (IFT) programme. The aim of the programme was to help retrenched technicians to establish their own businesses to offer fault fixing to Openserve, a free-standing division of Telkom and the country’s largest fixed wholesale operator. Telkom says the IFT programme was established as a finite programme that would offer support to these enterprises with the aim of enterprises graduating out of the programme in 2020. It…

TymeBank, a digital bank that is owned by billionaire Patrice Motsepe, is targeting 12 million churchgoers of Zion Christian Church (ZCC) as clients. African Rainbow Capital (ARC), which was founded by Motsepe, announced on Sunday that TymeBank has entered into a partnership with the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) to offer a banking proposition to its members. TymeBank will offer ZCC members a membership card that also works like a debit card. The ZCC is the largest African-initiated church in Southern Africa, with a membership of about 12 million. “Some nine million ZCC members are based in South Africa,” said TymeBank.…

Mobile phone group MTN announced on Wednesday plans to invest $1.6 billion(R23 billion) in Nigeria over the next three years to strengthen and expand its network and operations in the country. In December, MTN received good news after the Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of Justice has withdrawn a $2 billion tax demand against MTN Nigeria. Late December 2018, MTN reached an agreement with Nigeria’s central bank when the $8.1 billion claim was reduced to $53 million. The news of the investment was shared during a statement by President Muhammadu Buhari, whereby he reaffirmed that the Nigerian government is committed…

Praveen Maharaj on Wednesday dismissed reports linking him to death threats made in a WhatsApp Group against MDPS (Mobile Diesel Power Systems). Maharaj, who is a regional manager of Mobax for the Eastern Region off KwaZulu-Natal, said through his lawyers in an email to TechFinancials that he vehemently denies ever having made any of the published statements. Earlier this month, TechFinancials issued a report detailing death threats against MDPS in a WhatsApp Group. The correspondence was shared by a concerned WhatsApp group member to the owners of MDPS, who later shared it with Vodacom KZN and the Parliament Portfolio Committee…

Cell C, which is 45% owned by JSE-listed Blue Label Telecoms, appears to be sinking deeper into trouble. The struggling mobile operator has defaulted on the payment of interest on a $184 million (R2.7 billion) loan, which was due in December 2019, along with interest and capital repayments related to bilateral loan facilities with Nedbank, China Development Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Blue Label shares were hard hit by the news, sending its shares 12.58% lower at R2.78 by 02:11 pm on Tuesday in Johannesburg bourse. The company and Net…

We live in a digital world. Digital technologies are advancing at a rapid pace, connecting people around the world and creating new and exciting opportunities. More than any time in human history, people have greater access to knowledge, services and resources as a result of technological advancements. The impact of automation, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is felt almost everywhere, in all countries, industries, and everyday life. “However, while the impact of digitization is widespread, the benefits it yields are distributed unevenly,” says Tae Yoo, Cisco’s senior VP of Corporate Affairs. “It is important to understand a…

MDPS (Mobile Diesel Power Systems) is out of business because a report was tampered with which exonerated the KwaZulu Natal-based small business, the chairperson of the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development Ruth Bhengu, said in a voice clip. The company is involved in a fierce battle with mobile phone giant Vodacom after settling out of court with Sweden’s telecoms giant Ericsson. The central claim is that Vodacom suspended its services after false claims related to buying diesel for running the mobile phone operators’ generators for its mobile phone towers in KwaZulu Natal. MDPS has never made any admissions…