Telecoms company Vivica Group is eyeing expansion into the UK and Europe, entering the renewable energy space and growing its fibre infrastructure business after its restructuring and rebranding.
A month ago, the company, formerly known as Vox Holdings, unveiled its new name and structure aimed at simplifying the business and positioning its subsidiaries for growth.
CEO Jacques du Toit said this week the Vox group business had become complex for customers who want simplicity and to deal with experts.
“We want to grow the business ... We looked at all services under Vox Telecoms and stripped them out to be stand-alone businesses. We created these entities to introduce a lot more simplicity,” he said.
The benefit of simplifying the business, Du Toit said, was that it would be much easier and faster for subsidiaries to adapt to changes in the market and identify opportunities.
Subsidiaries include Armata, a cybersecurity company; FrogFoot, a fibre infrastructure provider; cloud services entity Nymbis; Qwerty, which manages companies’ IT estate; and Vox, an internet service provider.
The next multibillion-rand businesses are being nurtured in the private sector
— CEO Jacques du Toit
Du Toit said the businesses will also have the flexibility to pursue growth locally and internationally. International expansion will be done through partnerships and acquisition.
“We have an enormous amount of optionality to grow the business. You can now decide what you do with all the subsidiaries ... which brands you take internationally or list or look at external shareholders,” said Du Toit.
He said there are no plans to sell any of the businesses. “Our philosophy is to build sustainable businesses that show exponential growth, then opportunities will come at the right time,” he said.
Once listed on the JSE as Vox and delisted in 2011, Vivica is owned by the Mineworkers Investment Company, RMB Capital and Metier.
Du Toit said the private sector is buzzing with innovation, helped by lean decision-making structures and entrepreneurial boards.
“I’m taking nothing away from the listed sector. It has a key role to play. What I am suggesting from experience is that the next multibillion-rand businesses are being nurtured in the private sector, which by its nature lends itself to innovation and fast decision-making by well experienced entrepreneurial jockeys,” he said.
Vivica’s FrogFoot is ramping up its fibre infrastructure network rollout with plans to have more than 300,000 businesses connected to its network, as more employees return to the office. It currently has 12,000 business premises connected with its fibre.
FrogFoot has 350,000 homes connected to its fibre network, mainly in bigger cities including Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. It is expanding in what it describes as secondary towns such as Dispatch, in the Eastern Cape, and Thabazimbi and Tzaneen in Limpopo.
Du Toit said the fibre market is about 4.7-million homes but that is likely to double over five years as more secondary towns get connected. “We aim for nothing less than 15% share of the market. This applies to any area of service we provide,” he said.
Vivica is competing with companies such as Vumatel, which last year merged its fibre assets with that of Vodacom and Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), with the new entity expected to become the country's biggest fibre infrastructure company with a combined 1.35-million connections. The fibre infrastructure companies sell capacity to internet service providers.
According to Du Toit, secondary towns have been neglected and there is as equal demand.
“Everybody wants faster internet. Unfortunately they are being neglected ... The available infrastructure is highly congested and service level agreements are often impacted. There are massive growth opportunities,” he said.
In September, Vivica will launch a new entity, Stage Zero, an energy company which Du Toit says will offer a “disruptive business model with aggressive price points”.
The company will offer backup energy products such as solar solutions “designed to save customers money”. Stage Zero will also offer solutions for corporates. “We have been planning this for two years and now we are ready to take it to market. We already produce our own batteries,” he said.
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