Approval granted for Neotel, Transtel merger

On Wednesday, South Africa’s Competition Tribunal unconditionally approved the merger between the country’s second national operator (SNO) Neotel, and Transtel Telecoms, a division of state owned ports, rail and pipeline utility Transnet. The deal is valued at ZAR230 million (USD29.09 million) and sees Amsbury, a wholly subsidiary of Neotel, taking over Transtel’s business of providing voice, data and network telecommunication services as a going concern. As part of the deal Neotel will also be awarded a master service agreement to become Transnet’s sole provider of electronic communications services for the next five years.