Competition authorities have approved Vumatel’s move to acquire internet provider Herotel.
On Friday, the Competition Commission said it had approved the transaction, with conditions.
Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), Remgro’s telecom division, had initially acquired a 45% noncontrolling stake in fellow fixed internet provider Herotel, through its Vuma unit, in February 2022.
Now, the group is seeking to take control of the business.
Founded in 2014, Herotel has passed more than 150,000 homes and business users to the internet across more than 400 towns and cities. Homes passed is a measure used in the fibre industry to denote the number of potential customers a company has access to through their service being available in an area.
Herotel operates at the national fibre infrastructure, last-mile fibre infrastructure, retail internet access services and fixed wireless access levels of the telecommunications market.
The unit will become part of CIVH, now operating as Maziv, housing Vumatel, SADV, Rise Telecoms and BritelinkMCT.
The competition watchdog said the proposed transaction “does not raise significant public interest concerns”.
However, to address competition concerns, “the acquiring group has agreed to maintain premerger open access and to continue to provide services on terms that are transparent and nondiscriminatory. Further, Vumatel has also made public interest commitments to roll out FTTH [fibre to the home] in low-income areas.”
CIVH will welcome that one of its transactions has been approved after a proposed merger with Vodacom’s fibre business was rejected by the Competition Tribunal in October.
The proposed merger would have seen Vodacom take a 30% stake in Maziv, together worth an estimated R13bn — with the option of increasing the stake to 40%.
The companies have already lodged provisional appeals to that outcome, pending the tribunal publishing its reasons for now allowing it to go through.
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