MultiChoice had decided to axe the Gupta-linked ANN7 channel from its DStv platform, the pay-TV group said on Wednesday. Owing to the “controversies” associated with ANN7, MultiChoice said it would not renew its contract with the channel when it expired in August 2018. The company was preparing a tender for a replacement black-owned news channel, MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela said. The decision to drop the channel — which was launched in 2013 to much criticism given its ties to the Gupta family — was a blow to new owner Mzwanele Manyi and possibly also the Guptas’ embattled Oakbay Investments vehicle. In 2017, Manyi bought the Guptas’ shares in ANN7 for R300m in a vendor-financed deal. In such deals, if the buyer did not put up collateral, the seller and financier — in this case Oakbay — would be at risk of losing the repayments owed, Robert Peche, group strategy associate at Bravura, said. “Essentially, [ANN7] will lose its core revenue stream and it therefore seems unlikely that it...
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