Parent company Altron owns 57,7% in Bytes and 57,6% in Altech, and all three said yesterday they were still engaged in the preliminary discussions they first mentioned on August 8. <\/p>\n
When the talks were first announced, SP Reid analyst Warwick Lucas said there was no meaningful comment attached, so possibilities included an unbundling, a merger of all three using Altron, a merger of Bytes and Altech, or the sale of some major divisions between businesses. <\/p>\n
“We are a little unhappy with the wording of the cautions because each of the speculative guesses would see different outcomes on the share prices.” <\/p>\n
Yesterday Lucas speculated that the cautionary was most likely for Altron to take over and delist Altech and Bytes. Other analysts also believe Altron wants to increase its stake in the two, but both Bytes CEO Dave Redshaw and Altech CEO Craig Venter cherish their independence. Another option is that the deal involves a way to raise cash for Bytes to grow through acquisitions. <\/p>\n
At the end of February, Altech held more than R1,1bn in cash and Altron had R1,5bn, while Bytes had a far more modest R263m and short term loans of R62m. Redshaw has previously said he would be happy to fund some acquisitions by drawing on the cash readily available. <\/p>\n
Bytes has long wanted to buy out Business Connexion, which is potentially back on the market after the Competition Tribunal vetoed a plan by Telkom to swallow the company. But Business Connexion CEO Benjamin Mophatlane has made it clear he wants his company to remain independent. <\/p>\n
By early afternoon yesterday, Bytes shares had slipped from R15,30 to R15,10, Altech was a fraction up at R60,55 and Altron had gained 75c to R45,75. <\/p>\n
Altron also issued a trading update yesterday advising that its headline earnings per share for the half year to August would be 35% to 40% higher than a year ago, primarily due to a strong performance by another division, Powertech. Altron’s headline earnings should be 60%-65% higher. <\/p>\n
Altech and Bytes had also achieved solid growth and their headline earnings per share should be 8%-13% higher. Altech posts its interim results tomorrow, and Altron and Bytes early next month. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TECHNOLOGY trio Bytes, Altech and Altron have renewed their interlinked cautionaries that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153leave the uninformed, uninformed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, as analysts at Imara SP Reid describe it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}