Author: Gugu Lourie

The board of Just Eat, the online food delivery platform, says the revised bid offer by tech giant Prosus undervalues the business. “The Board of Just Eat has now considered the terms of the Prosus offer and continues to believe that it significantly undervalues Just Eat and its attractive assets and prospects both on a standalone basis and as part of the proposed recommended all-share combination with Takeaway.com,” the company’s board informed investors on Tuesday. On Monday, Naspers-owned Prosus sweetened its offer to 740p offer a share. The increased offer is at a 25.6% premium to Just Eat’s closing share…

The battle for control of Just Eat intensified today when Naspers-owned tech giant Prosus raised its offer to R98 billion. Just Eat has rejected a £5bn hostile swoop by Prosus, the Dutch arm of South Africa internet titan Naspers. Its board is instead recommending investors support a planned merger with Takeaway.com that was announced this summer. In October, the Euronext and JSE-listed tech giant made a bid of 4.9 billion pounds ($6.35 billion or R94 billion) or 710 pence a share, in cash for Just Eat. For more read: Naspers’ Prosus Makes R94bn Bid For Just Eat The company has now raised…

South African mobile data network operator rain, which recently launched its intelligent 5G transport network, continues to invest in its 5G network across the country. 5G promises to be much faster than the current fourth-generation 4G and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks, meaning that users should be able to download files, transfer data and browse the internet at much faster speeds than what telco services are capable of now. An industry intelligence report by BIS Research titled “Global 5G Infrastructure Market – Analysis and Forecast, 2019-2025” sees the global 5G-infrastructure market growing by more than $42 billion by 2025. Rain, partly…

Digital banking service TymeBank is onboarding about 100 000 customers per month or between 20 000 and 30 000 customers each week. Billionaire Patrice Motsepe, through his investment company African Rainbow Capital Investment, bought a majority stake in TymeBank in 2018. African Rainbow Capital informed investors on Friday TymeBank succeeded in acquiring one million customers by 23 November 2019. “This milestone is slightly ahead of its schedule, as the bank originally expected to achieve this by end of December 2019,” the investment company said. “The bank is now working towards onboarding two million customers by December 2020.” TymeBank was officially…

South Africa, with one of the worst savings rates in the world, has more of a debt culture than a savings one. The latest savings statistics make for grim reading. The South African Savings Institute recently stated that the household savings rate had plunged from an already poor 0.4% of gross domestic product last July to negative 0.5% this year, effectively labelling this country as a nation of dis-savers. Enter Jupiter, a savings based FinTech company with a focus to deliver a frictionless and enjoyable savings process through its app, which allows everyday South Africans to earn stable and positive…

Gotbot AI, Africa’s tech startups, has received a significant investment boost to the value of R2,5-million from venture capital firm Capacitech. The first such investment of its kind for Gotbot AI will mean the company’s co-founders Nick Argyros and Chris Green, along with Chief Operational Officer, Craig McLeod, will be able to accelerate new developments and move the three-year-old start-up into the fast lane. In 2016, Gotbot AI launched an automated social commerce product called Get It, and have since shown steady growth with the development of their flagship product Custom Care. They quickly acquired key clients such as Toyota,…

Teraco announced on Monday that Jan Hnizdo, currently the company’s executive director, has been named as the CEO of Africa’s largest vendor-neutral data centre. The appointment is effective 1 January 2020. Hnizdo will replace Lex Van Wyk, who will step down as CEO. Van Wyk will remain a shareholder in Teraco and will continue to serve on the board in the capacity of non-executive Director. “This transition has been carefully planned over the last few years. The current management team is focused and stays in place with the same goals. Importantly, Jan has been an outstanding part of the leadership…

MTN announced yesterday the launch of its mobile money diaspora service, MTN Homeland. The aim of this service is to facilitate money and airtime transfers from Europe to Africa and parts of the Middle East. The service is powered by Johannesburg-based FinTech startup MFS Africa, the largest digital payments hub on the continent. It connects over 180 million mobile wallets on the continent. Through a single API, MFS Africa connects mobile wallet systems, banks, money transfer operators, and merchants to enable real-time, cross-border and cross-network transactions. With MTN Homeland, remittances can be made from Europe to Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana,…

Troubled Cell C has once again pushed back against efforts by Telkom to buy it, as its board sent a letter bluntly telling the South African telco it’s not interested in the offer. “Telkom has received written notice from the Cell C board of directors rejecting its non-binding proposal,” Telkom informed investors on Friday. “The Telkom Board continues to believe the offer is a compelling proposition that would have created significant value for all stakeholders including Telkom’s shareholders. “As the offer has been rejected by Cell C’s board of directors, Telkom shareholders are advised that they are no longer required…

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub is to join Vodafone executive committee. British mobile phone giant Vodafone is a majority shareholder of Vodacom, South Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator. Vodafone will simplify its management structure with the removal of the rest of world regional organisation, from the beginning of full-year 20/21, Vodacom spokesperson told TechFinancials in an email. Vodacom was responding to TechFinancials query that Joosub will be joining Vodafone as its head of Africa operations. For more read: Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub ‘Quits’ to Head Vodafone Africa “Following this reorganisation, Shameel Joosub, the Chief Executive of Vodacom Group, will be joining…