Idion shares, .za domain sagas hog headlines

The acquisitions by Infineon, KPMG and Novell, and the name change of PwC Consulting dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.

The latest dispute over the shares of the senior members of the Vlok family has taken on gigantic proportions, and could have serious knock-on implications.

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

At home, the Idion/DataMirror Vlok family shares saga, the reverse listing of Active Value Management into Dectronic, and the row over the .za domain, stole much of the local IT/telecoms headline space.

* we saw very good annual results from Labat Africa (revenue up and earnings significantly up);

* mediocre full-year figures from M-Cell (revenue well up but earnings down);

* very poor annual figures from Eureka (revenue up a little but earnings significantly down);

* a full-year loss from Y3K (revenue also down); and

* the termination of the listings of Rectron following its acquisition by Mustek, and Unihold following its acquisition by Clidet.

[Local]

Other local news included:

* the announcement by IQ Business Group that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Australian health insurer Grand Union Health Fund to create a new business process outsourcing company;

* the announcement that Vodacom had won a Mozambique licence;

* the formal announcement by Mustek of its intention to float its shares on the Taiwanese Stock Exchange;

* the appointments of Wade Gomes as country manager for Compuware Southern Africa, Wayne Levine as corporate GM for iTouch SA, Maroale Jacob Rachidi as president of the ITA, and Cyril Ramaphosa as non-executive chairman of M-Cell;

* the demise of yet another technology stock, Dectronic, through a reverse take-over by UK-based Active Value Management; and

* the "fiasco" surrounding the "supposed sell-off" of Idion shares by the Vlok family.

* we saw the announcement by PwC Consulting that it will be called Monday following its planned initial public offering in August;

* the news that Arm Holdings, Electrocomponents and Logica will exit the FTSE 100 index (Dimension Data suffered a similar fate last year), and that London Bridge Software, Marconi, Psion, TTP Comms and Telewest Comms will exit the FTSE 250 index;

* the termination of the agreement between France Telecom and Mobilcom AG; and

* the news that Bell & Howell Publishing Services is to be called ProQuest Business Solutions.

Additionally, look out for a floatation by Telekom Austria of part of its holding in MobilCom; a delay in the IPO of Germany`s Deutsche Telekom`s T-Mobile subsidiary; the potential buyer for UK`s CRM software vendor, AIT Group, and Germany`s IT services provider, Heyde AG; and the buyers of Extricity, Harbinger and Remedy, all part of the Peregrine Systems empire.

International acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures etc (see attachment).

[International]

Other international news included:

* the appointments of Barry Bateman as chairman of Colt Telecom (as from 1.1.03), Frank Bergandi as president and CEO of Actional Group, Robert Brown as CEO of Goss International, John Kelley as CEO of McData, Bill Sickler as CEO of Reactive Network Solutions, Philippe Szwarc as CEO of Arel, and Jack Webb as president and COO of Roanoke Technology;

* the resignations of Jack McDonnell, co-founder and CEO of McData, G Ray Miller as CEO of Preferred Voice (although remains as chairman), and Fran Scricco, president and CEO of Arrow Electronics;

* the retirement of James Curvey, chairman of Colt Telecom (end of 2002); and

* job loss announcements from Corning and HP.

Good numbers were recorded by Bonso Electronics (back in the black), DPAC Technologies, Lowrance Electronics, OmniVision Technologies and Sand Technology (back in the black); and satisfactory ones by Radstone Technology.

Mediocre returns came from Acal, ACS-Tech80, Adobe, Catalyst Semiconductor, Comtech Telecomms, GFI Informatique SA, Micronetics, RF Monolithics (but back in the black), Sorrento Networks (but back in the black) and Wallace.

Very poor results came from Harvey Electronics (but back in the black) and Microlog.

Losses came from APA Optics, Broadview Media, Certicom, CMGI, CompuTrac, Engage, e-SIM, Industri-Matematik International, Infonet, InTechnology, Leitch Technology, Net Nanny, Net2Phone, Procom Technology and Vsource.

Other financial news included share buy-back announcements from MRV Comms and Xilinx; profit warnings from Adobe, AIT, Allen Telecom, Avaya, CommScope, Genesis Microchip, i2Technologies, Liberate Technologies, Lucent Technologies, NIC, Nokia, Numerical Technologies, RadiSys, Shaw Comms, Siebel Systems, Sprint and Traffix; an IPO postponement from Advantage Payroll Services; and an IPO filing from Celerity Group (chip equipment). Additionally, Viatel has emerged from Chapter 11 following its re-organisation and new financial structuring.

Locally

Aqua Online (-33.3%)

Casey (-75%)

Crux (-33.3%)

Dectronic (+71.4%)

Explorer (+20%)

Hicor (-40%)

Infowave (-39.4%)

Maxtec (+50%)

Internationally

AIT (-74.5%)

Focal Comms (-39.4%)

Genesis Microchip (-37.8%)

i2 Technologies (-39.1%)

Palm (+31.1%)

PCD (-36.8%)

Rural Cellular (-31.8%)

TeleWest Comms (-31.2%)

Traffix (-34.6%)

Technisource (+39.6%)

The battle seems to be far from over between the DataMirror Group and Idion. The latest dispute over the shares of the senior members of the Vlok family has taken on gigantic proportions, and could have serious knock-on implications. It seems incredulous that such a "misunderstanding" could ever happen. I wonder if we will ever know the real truth of this very sensitive issue.