Nicky Smith, Bloomberg
- Vodacom Group Ltd., South Africa’s largest mobile-phone company, will announce details of a deal to sell a stake to black investors tomorrow morning.
“We are announcing our BEE transaction tomorrow morning,” Dot Field, Vodacom’s spokeswoman, said today in an interview in Johannesburg. She declined to provide details of the sale. BEE stands for black economic empowerment, a South African law designed to broaden economic participation by blacks.
Vodacom may sell shares worth 360 million rand ($47.7 million) to black investors, which will include employees, at a 10 percent discount, Johannesburg-based newspaper The Citizen said, citing a document. The sale at a discounted price will be part of a larger sale of a 6.25 percent stake valued at 7.5 billion rand, the newspaper said.
The newspaper said a public company called Yebo Yethu would be the vehicle through which new black investors would be able to participate in the deal. It said that Yebo Yethu would own 3.44 percent of Vodacom, the black public would own 55 percent of Yebo Yethu and Vodacom employees would hold the balance.
The minimum subscription would be for 100 shares while the maximum would be 1.44 million shares. Investors in the plan would be subject to a five-year lock-up period during which they would be prohibited from trading their shares, the newspaper said.
