TelePassport has sold a 30% empowerment stake to members of management in a deal funded by government`s National Empowerment Fund (NEF).
Although the value of the deal has not been disclosed, the company describes it as a multimillion-rand transaction.
The stake is being acquired by Mojaho Trading, a broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) consortium formed and headed by TelePassport managers Vincent Mokholo and Rhamees Nordien.
The company also includes a number of other black TelePassport staff and an independent women-owned BEE investment vehicle.
Mokholo says the deal has been more than a year in the making, adding that most of Mojaho`s members have been intimately involved with TelePassport for more than half of its 13-year history.
TelePassport chairman Prof John Hare says the deal is a true transfer of ownership to the key black people who have helped build the company.
"We believe that by going this route we have truly empowered the people closest to and most intimately involved with TelePassport, instead of simply transferring the wealth to an arms-length investor with access to a large investment account.
"From this point of view we have not just balanced our scorecard for the record, we have done so in the morally correct way as best envisaged by the principles of BEE."
The company says the NEF provided a strong level of support, assistance and innovation in structuring the deal, which includes close ties with TelePassport into the future.
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