The Competition Tribunal has unconditionally approved the large merger whereby a special purpose company incorporated in SA, Main Street, will acquire Octotel.
In a statement, the Tribunal says it has found that the proposed transaction is unlikely to substantially prevent or lessen competition in any market.
In addition, it notes, the proposed transaction does not raise any public interest concerns.
Main Street is ultimately controlled by Actis, a limited liability partnership registered in England. The Tribunal says Actis Group (Actis and the firms it controls) is a global private equity investment group which invests in emerging markets including Africa, China, India, Latin America and South East Asia.
Its investment focus is primarily on the consumer, healthcare, financial services, industrial, energy, education and real estate sectors, it notes.
Octotel, a South African firm, operates an open access fibre network. Its activities in this regard include the building, owning, maintaining and leasing of fibre networks, with a focus on providing fibre-to-the-home and fibre-to-the business.
Octotel operates in the greater Cape Town metropole and it operates as an independent fibre provider and rolls out its fibre network in partnership with community and local internet service providers.
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