SNO shareholding fight

Last week was dominated internationally by the flood of quarterly results, while the local market still awaits the final details of the new value-added network services regulations and the winner of the second national operator (SNO) shareholding fight between the Tata Group and Old Mutual. It seems the Tata Group is the front-runner, but as far as the SNO is concerned, nothing is ever certain until it happens!

* Very good interim numbers from Xantium Technology Holdings. The company`s maiden set of numbers shows very good revenue growth and a good positive bottom line.

* France Telecom`s expected buy-out of the 45.8% of the shares of Equant NV it doesn`t already own, in a deal expected to be about $750 million.

* Rumours suggest an executive re-shuffle is on the cards at HP that would force CEO, Carly Fiorina, to delegate more of her responsibilities.

* Speculation is rife re the possible $16 billion+ take-over of AT&T by SBC Comms. AT&T is the largest long distance phone provider in the US, but in recent years has lost over 35 million customers to SBC Comms and Verizon Comms.

It seems the Tata Group is the front-runner, but as far as the SNO is concerned, nothing is ever certain until it happens!

Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners

* A positive trading update from Faritec.

* A negative trading update from Spescom, with a possible headline loss looming.

* The formal de-listing of Global Technology`s shares.

* Wendy Appelbaum was appointed as deputy chairman of Connection Group.

* Ulwazi Digital Information opened a software development facility in Mauritius.

* Sahara Computers was appointed as a Computer Associates distributor for Africa.

* Vodacom announced its African subscriber base now includes over 14 million customers.

* Further developments re Altech and EWG, in that the latter now owns 40% equity interest in Mascom Wireless Botswana.

* Innodata Isogen postponed its public offering of common stock.

* SK Telecom and Earthlink created a joint venture to market wireless voice and data services in the US.

* Telecom Italia sold off its 55% stake in Chile`s Entel SA for $934 million.

* The name change of Edison Renewables to NextPhase Wireless.

* The appointments of Jonathan Colehower as CEO of Optiant, James Cullen as chairman of Agilent Technologies, Michael Klayko as CEO of Brocade Comms, Bill Sullivan as president and CEO of Agilent Technologies, and Steve Tirado as president and CEO of Silicon Image.

* The resignations of Todd Bradley as CEO of palmOne, Jeffrey Graves as CEO of KEMET, Steven Laub as president and CEO of Silicon Image, and Greg Reyes as CEO of Brocade Comms.

* The retirement of Ned Barnholt as chairman, president and CEO of Agilent Technologies.

* Positive results announcements from Digital River, Intrado, NovAtel and Xyratex.

* Negative result warnings from Fujitsu, Lexar Media, NEC and Nintendo.

* Stock repurchase announcements from Cymer and Texas Instruments.

* Job loss announcements from Gresham Computing, Matsushita, Nokia, Parity Group, Siemens, SR Telecom and Transmeta.

* Private funding obtained for Napster, a music download company; Paymetric, a provider of SAP-integrated Payment card solutions; Pragmatech Software, a developer of sales productivity and proposal automation software; and Sychron, a desktop management software vendor.

* A stock offering announcement by Dex Media.

* A planned IPO in London from Russia`s AFK Sistema, Moscow`s telecoms holding company.

* Virgin Mobile`s move into Nigeria, possibly via a stake in Vmobile. Additionally, talks are also under way re China, India and Mexico.

* The winding-up of London-listed Argonaut Games.

* A possible $1.8 billion bid by China Mobile for CSL, Hong Kong`s second largest mobile phone operator that is owned by Australia`s Telstra.

* A major shake-up/restructuring at China Unicom, the country`s second largest mobile phone operator.

* PC shipments in EMEA up 19% in 2004 with nearly 60 million units shipped (IDC).

* The emergence of Lockheed Martin as one of the world`s top 10 IT service providers; now larger than France`s Capgemini.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.6%

* Nasdaq: Up 0.07%

SA share movements

Business Connexion (+9.7%)
Digicore (+11.9%)
Elexir (+33.3%)
Faritec (+13%)
Labat Africa (-18.5%)
MGX (+13.3%)
Prism (+11.9%)
Spescom (-25.3%)
Y3K (-21.9%)
Zaptronix (+33.3%)

If the acquisition of AT&T materialises, we will lose one of the oldest names in the ICT industry. Apart from a handful of the Japanese companies, which in the 1950s and 1960s were in different businesses, we are only left with Honeywell, IBM, NCR and Siemens from that era, and only IBM is still focused on similar market sectors today compared to that time.