MTN South Africa CEO Mteto Nyati says the company is looking for acquisition opportunities, but Neotel will not be one of them.
"Our strategy is completely different from that of Vodacom. Our strategy is that we want to provide end-to-end services in the enterprise space and when I look at the capabilities of Neotel, they are not necessarily the ones that we are missing today," Nyati told ITWeb in an interview.
He says MTN SA is looking to build its offerings in the enterprise space and seeking acquisitions that will help fill gaps in its current offering.
"The kind of companies that we are missing to help us provide end-to-end ICT services in the enterprise space, those are the kind of companies we are looking for and having discussions with to acquire."
Vodacom announced at the beginning of the month that its long-awaited acquisition of Neotel had been called off due to "regulatory complexities" and after certain conditions could not be fulfilled.
The original R7 billion buyout of Neotel by Vodacom has been on the cards since May 2014, but came up against strong opposition from rival telco operators, including MTN, mostly because of issues with Vodacom gaining control of Neotel's much sought-after radio frequency spectrum.
In December, the merging parties announced a "modified transaction" that removed the spectrum from the deal, but a few months later ended up calling off even the modified arrangement.
Nyati admits the Vodacom-Neotel deal falling apart was an outcome MTN was hoping for.
"We were one of those companies that objected but we did not object based on the acquisition of Neotel by Vodacom as a principle. We objected to the transfer of the spectrum. With the spectrum on the side, we were all in for supporting the acquisition of Neotel.
"However, when it came to the transfer of Neotel's spectrum that was going to make a number one player even more dominant, we felt it was unfair to us and also it was going to create an unfair situation where one player would be able to actually kill all of the other players. Based on that, we really appreciate the outcome; it's the outcome that we were hoping for," he adds.
In February, MTN ? along with Cell C, Telkom and Internet Solutions ? won a high court challenge against the Independent Communications Authority of SA for its original decision to approve the transfer of spectrum and operating licences from Neotel to Vodacom.
MTN SA has 30.6 million active customers compared to Vodacom's 34.1 million active customers in South Africa. The MTN Group, however, has 232.5 million subscribers across 22 countries in the Middle East and Africa, whereas Vodacom only has a total of 65.2 million subscribers in five African countries, including SA.
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