Sasfin Securities Deputy Chairman David Shapiro has described Cell C as an abysmal failure which has failed to live up to expectations.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Business Day TV<\/strong><\/a>, Shapiro said\u00a0Cell C will have a tough time competing effectively against Vodacom and MTN, considering its current financial situation.<\/p>\n Ratings firm S&P Global recently downgraded Cell C\u2019s corporate credit rating<\/strong><\/a> to the lowest junk-level rating on its scale after it missed an interest payment on a senior secured bond.<\/p>\n S&P Global said\u00a0Cell C\u2019s revised recovery rating and lower recovery prospects are partly due to uncertainty over a potential buyer\u2019s ability to have unrestricted use of Cell C\u2019s spectrum.<\/p>\n The missed payment and subsequent downgrade has raised questions about Cell C\u2019s financial future, with Shapiro not upbeat about its prospects.<\/p>\n \u201cThey captured a little bit of the market, but have not gone anywhere near where the projections were,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n He said competing in the mobile network space was a capital-intensive business, with Vodacom and MTN investing close to R10 billion each year in their networks.<\/p>\n Cell C does not have the resources to do the same. It also has to spend money on marketing if it wants to take market share away from Vodacom and MTN.<\/p>\n Even with a capital injection from the planned Blue Label Telecoms deal, and a restructuring of debt, it is questionable whether Cell C will have enough money to keep investing in its network.<\/p>\n \u201cMy biggest concern is whether the new shareholders are going to have the money to keep the infrastructure going,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n He said there will be a race to sign up enough new subscribers before the money runs out.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I was the Levy brothers, I would have taken the money and just enjoyed it. Why take this kind of risk in this kind of market?\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n A financial analyst has described Cell C as an abysmal failure which did not live up to expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":185806,"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_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[355,10458,35,42,41],"class_list":["post-198013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-cell-c","tag-david-shapiro","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198013"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198344,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198013\/revisions\/198344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read:\u00a0Cell C has shot itself in the foot<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"