Afrihost buying back controlling stake from MTN

Do you support Afrihost’s plan to buy back its shares from MTN?

  • Yes

    Votes: 65 97.0%

  • No

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • Total voters
    67
It is my sincere hope that Gian and the other directors have learnt from this story, and will be more cautious in future.

After all, mistakes are there to be learnt from. :)

If you don't make mistakes, you aren't learning anything.
 
rpm said:
It is always great to see the founders of a company gaining control of it again after an acquisition. In the case of Afrihost I think the company will be able to be far more disruptive without a multinational company as a majority shareholder.

I hope they launch a “we are independent again” special ;)
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New opening specials? lol :D
 
Oh yes!! Take your stake back please!! All the best to Gian and crew. Wonder what that stake is worth now.
 
Skerminkel said:
Why should it? Every indication was that the companies were pretty much at arms length all the time. The mobile deals were therefore proper commercial deals. No subsidising.
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MTN were subsidizing Afrihost massively. The price of wholesale data to Afrihost from MTN was below their production cost per mb. This has been widely publicized, BUT, this was the case even before the acquisition took place...
 
Nyati said at the time: “Let me be open about this. Afrihost has been a customer of MTN Business for a long time. We have given them wholesale prices that were subsidised by MTN. We cannot afford to do that going forward.”
 
Woohoo! Less of my money going to that POS corporation, still got AH mobile though...

Glad they realised the balls up sooner rather than later before MTN could destroy anything else, an odd decision all round to sell out in the first place... Big balls as well on the AH execs who gave MTN the finger over the network and again now.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I can only imagine that this is being done because the valuation of the company is quite a bit down on what MTN paid for...
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Is this fact based? What is the current valuation vs. the ~R400m that MTN paid for 50.2%?
 
Received a Gian mail:

Hi Fulcrum29,

I just wanted to personally let you know that we are buying back all the shares that MTN own in Afrihost.

My fellow directors and I (together with some of our friends and family) are in the process of buying the 50.02% shareholding that MTN currently own.

Afrihost will once again be majority owned by my fellow directors and I.

And we're going to relentlessly focus on what we believe we've always done best: Innovation, looking after our team and our clients and working ridiculously hard to give you the best possible value and experience.

Thank you for being our client.

I am humbled (and honoured) by the trust you have placed in us and will do everything in my power to ensure your trust is well rewarded.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank MTN for the many miles they have run with us over the past few years. We have learnt a lot and we wish them all the absolute best in the future.

Thank you and God bless

Gian
CEO, Afrihost
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