Johnnic sells Ananzi as B2C lustre fades

Johannesburg, 28 Mar 2002

Johnnic e-Ventures (JeV) says it has agreed in principle to sell Ananzi, the largest South African search engine, to Brabys, which specialises in publishing business directories. Both Ananzi and JeV have long associations with Brabys.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Johnnic acquired Ananzi early in 2000 while consolidating its Internet assets to form e-Ventures. The site was to provide a basis for the consumer business JeV planned to build and act as a traffic driver for content sites such as the Financial Mail and Sunday Times Web sites.

In the intervening two years, Johnnic decided to focus its attention on the business-to-business potential of the Internet, and JeV CEO Neil Jacobsohn says the Ananzi sale is the final step in doing so.

"We took on Ananzi in the heyday of the Internet boom and we were exploring the consumer market like everyone else was then," he says. "We rebuilt it, marketed it strongly and saw it growing very well indeed, but the advertising revenue on which it depends is not there."

During its time as owner, JeV funded a new technology platform for the site and an extensive radio advertising campaign. Jacobsohn confirms that his division will write off some loses incurred by the site, but says the total will not be significant, partly because it is small in comparison with other assets, and because its losses were partially offset by revenue.

"Ananzi made some revenue; it had a large stake of the limited online advertising market," he says, adding that the business made up no more than 2% of JeV`s income in the last year.

Jacobsohn says no changes are expected at other JeV consumer content sites, such as the Sunday Times, and that the costs of such sites are regarded as marketing expenses.

The Ananzi team is expected to move to Brabys intact, and the site will continue to be hosted by Citec, Johnnic`s Internet service provider subsidiary. Representatives of Ananzi and Brabys could not immediately be reached for comment.