Vodacom’s Proposed Acquisition of Maziv Prohibited by South Africa’s Competition Tribunal

The Competition Tribunal (“Tribunal”) has today issued its order prohibiting the proposed transaction involving Vodacom (Pty) Ltd (“Vodacom”) and Business Venture Investments No 2213 (Pty) Ltd, also known as “Maziv”.

The proposed transaction would have combined the country’s largest mobile operator, Vodacom, with one of South Africa’s largest fibre infrastructure players, Maziv. Maziv is a wholly owned subsidiary of Community Investment Ventures Holdings (Pty) Ltd (“CIVH”). CIVH has two main operating subsidiaries, Dark Fibre Africa (Pty) Ltd and Vumatel (Pty) Ltd.

In terms of the proposed transaction, Vodacom intended to acquire a certain shareholding in Maziv and to sell certain assets to Maziv.

The Tribunal’s decision to prohibit the proposed merger follows an extensive hearing that took place over 26 days between 20 May to 27 September 2024. The parties also made further written submissions after this, the last of which was received by the Tribunal on 16 October 2024.

During the hearing, the Tribunal heard evidence from various factual witnesses including from each of the merging parties, Frogfoot Networks (Pty) Ltd, Telkom Consumer and Small Business and Mobile Networks of Telkom Consumer and Small Business, divisions of Telkom SA SOC Ltd, Mobile Telephone Networks (Pty) Ltd (“MTN”) and Rain (Pty) Ltd. At the Tribunal’s request, Hero Telecoms (Pty) Ltd also provided factual testimony.

In addition to the factual witnesses of the abovementioned firms, four economic experts presented evidence on behalf of the Competition Commission, the merging parties and MTN.

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition and the Communication Workers’ Union also participated in the proceedings.

The Tribunal’s reasons for its decision will be issued in due course.