South African cellular operator Vodacom has sold a stake in its Mozambican subsidiary.
However, the company says it cannot disclose what percentage it has sold to Intelec Holdings, nor the rand value of the deal.
Before the transaction, the Vodacom group owned 98% of the Mozambican operator, with the balance held by a local consortium named Empresa Mocambicana de Telecommunicac~oes (Emotel).
In Vodacom's latest interim report, to end-September 2006, it said it had a market share of 33%, with 694 000 customers in a country with telephony penetration of 10.7% out of a population of 19.7 million.
At the time, Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig remarked that Mozambique was a difficult country in which to do business as the competitor was the government. "It's difficult, but we have our shoulder to the wheel and it will take a few years to turn around."
In a statement, Vodacom says: "Vodacom Mozambique will benefit from the additional support and oversight that can be provided by a Mozambican holding company, and particularly by Salimo Abdula, Intelec's chairman, a leading businessman and current chairman of the Confederac~ao das Associac~oes Econ'omicas, a national association of chambers of trade and commerce."
Emotel will retain its stake and its chairman, Dr Hermenegildo Gamito, will continue to serve as the chairman of Vodacom Mozambique. "It is the objective of Vodacom to ensure increasing participation of Mozambican shareholders in Vodacom Mozambique in future," the company says.
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