Mteto Nyati, one of SA’s most high-profile executives, is stepping down from his role as CEO of Altron at the end of June after a five-year tenure defined by the spinning off to shareholders of the company's moneymaking UK division.
Nyati, a former CEO of MTN SA and MD of Microsoft SA, joined Altron in 2017 where he led the company’s transition from a family controlled business managed by founder Bill Venter and his son Robbie, the former CEO.
“This decision was informed by Nyati’s impending completion of a five-year term with the Altron Group, his successful contribution to increasing shareholder value by approximately six times during his tenure, and his search for a new challenge,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The former Venter family business is barely recognisable, having staked its future on a relationship with software giant Microsoft, the growth of cloud services and partnerships in the automotive sector.
Nyati will leave will a number of accomplishments under his belt, most notable of which was the demerger with former subsidiary Bytes and the reorganisation of the business into one brand serving clients in financial services, health and manufacturing.
Under his tenure, Bytes was listed on the London Stock Exchange in December 2020, with a secondary inward listing on the JSE, after a demerger that created R13bn in value for its shareholders. Altron had argued that the true value of the UK business was not fully reflected in its share price.
When Nyati took over at Altron, its market cap was about R4.5bn and the share price then more than tripled from R11 to R34.60 at the time of the Bytes demerger. In addition, earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation doubled over the same period.
Altron and Bytes are now worth a combined R30bn.
Even as the spin-off handed shareholders a fast-growing company whose value wasn’t reflected in Altron’s share price, it separated one of the biggest contributors to Altron revenue and piled pressure on management to find new revenue streams.
Nyati, a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, led the completion of a number of acquisitions, including EZY2C in Australia, Phoenix Software in the UK, and Karabina, Ubusha and LAWtrust in SA.
The challenge for the new CEO will be bedding down the new acquisitions, and possibly crafting his or her blueprint for continued growth.
Altron shares ended the day at R9.20, down 2.95%.
Update: January 11 2021
This story has been updated with additional information about Nyati.
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