{"id":609697,"date":"2025-09-04T12:09:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=609697"},"modified":"2025-09-04T12:13:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T10:13:16","slug":"mtn-considering-buying-telkom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/609697-mtn-considering-buying-telkom.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN considering buying Telkom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MTN Group, Africa\u2019s largest wireless carrier, is considering reviving talks to acquire smaller South African rival Telkom, according to people familiar with the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom has also been talking to advisers about its options if a new takeover bid is launched, said the people, who asked not to be identified because information is still private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two companies could begin negotiations before the end of the year, though there\u2019s no guarantee that these talks would lead to a deal, they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representatives for MTN and Telkom declined to comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN walked away<\/a> from early negotiations to buy Telkom in 2022 after the two disagreed on exclusivity and amid concerns about winning antitrust approval for a deal that would have created South Africa\u2019s dominant mobile phone operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom\u2019s shares have risen more than 40% since those earlier talks were called off and the company is valued at about 25 billion South African rand ($1.4 billion) currently.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telkom shares jumped as much as 16% to 56.9 rand in Johannesburg, the biggest intraday gain since July 2022. MTN fell 0.8% to 138.7 rand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rival Vodacom Group secured a deal to take a stake in Remgro’s fibre business after years of negotiations with South Africa\u2019s competition authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision gave MTN confidence that it could potentially also get approval to combine with Telkom, said the people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s government is pushing to secure better connectivity for the country, and boost investment in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The telecommunications industry has argued that this is only commercially viable if infrastructure isn\u2019t duplicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To bolster its deals capacity, MTN has placed its Chief Financial Officer Tsholofelo Molefe \u2014 who is also a former Telkom executive \u2014 at the head of its mergers and acquisitions unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A combination with Telkom could close the gap with rival Vodacom, South Africa\u2019s market leader controlled by the UK\u2019s Vodafone Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN Group, Africa\u2019s largest wireless carrier, is considering reviving talks to acquire smaller South African rival Telkom SA, according to people familiar with the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":609699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[81711,42,33386,21387,109,41,25299],"class_list":["post-609697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-maziv","tag-mtn","tag-openserve","tag-remgro","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom","tag-vumatel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609697"}],"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\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609700,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609697\/revisions\/609700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}