banking on a lifeline
Why Cell C should be saved
Best bet for survival hinges on an R8bn deal with new shareholders with compelling ideas on how to turn the company around
Cell C’s failure to live up to its promise is only partly explained by the fact that it was a late entrant to a market dominated by Vodacom and MTN. But having eluded business rescue, its best bet now, for not just survival but injecting more competition into the sector, hinges on an R8bn deal with new shareholders with compelling ideas on how to turn the company around. It’s been 15 years since Cell C, SA’s third mobile network, signed up its first customer. When it launched in November 2001, then-CEO Talaat Laham boasted how he was "confident that we will perform better than our own expectations", signing up more than 20% of the market by 2006, mainly because it would provide "far better value for money" than its rivals. On that barometer, you’d have to say it’s been a spectacular disappointment. Today, Cell C remains a speck in the distance behind Vodacom and MTN: it has yet to reach that 20% market share, has only just recorded its first net profit, and its prospects of closing ...
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