MTN gets go-ahead to buy out iTalk

The battle to buy out Durban based iTalk Cellular’s remaining 59 percent by MTN has been approved by the Competition Tribunal and the transactions to make iTalk a solely owned company within the MTN group will be finalized in a few days.

Engineering News reported that The Huge Group who contested the deal, also wanted to buy iTalk. Huge argued that MTN would not benefit from iTalk’s small subscriber base and that they are more interested in its brand and distributorship agreements.

Huge argued that other micro lenders would benefit more than MTN would with iTalk and that they could provide credit to lower income users and provide contracts, which would create growth in subscriber numbers. However, MTN contested this and said that even though iTalk’s subscriber base was small it had a high average revenue per user.

During the hearing with the Competition Tribunal, MTN gave their reasons for wanting to buy out iTalk saying that it held a number of benefits for the provider in the KwaZulu-Natal region and that the company’s subscriber base and distribution agreements were attractive.-Natalie Grobler