Bain brings in the big guns

The 'manoeuvrings' regarding the fight over Toshiba's chip business dominated the international ICT market last week.

At home, it was very quiet.

* Mediocre year-end figures from Jasco, with revenue down 3% and profit down 22.7%.
* A positive trading update from Altron.
* PwC acquired Agilitude, a Salesforce reseller and platinum consulting partner in Africa.

* Good year-end figures from Airtel Uganda, with revenue up 22% and profit up 85.6%.
* Allied Exchange Africa has launched its novel digital payment platform, ALEXpay, to overcome the lack of cross-network fund transfer and interoperability, which currently inhibits the potential of mobile money services in Ghana.
* ViRural Group and C3, a leading provider of critical infrastructure services for African communities, have announced the merger of the two companies, creating a pan-African group top-level company called C3 Africa. The new group will be privately held and operate under the brand C3 Africa and the national operations in Malawi under the C3 Malawi brand.
* Telecommunications firm Uganda Telecom (UTL) has been ordered to pay its competitor, MTN Uganda, more than Shs6 billion to settle an interconnection bill for March to December 2007.
* The appointment of Paul Talley, co-founder, chairman and CEO of ViRural Group, as chairman and CEO of C3 Africa.

Google has appealed against a record EUR2.4 billion EU antitrust fine.

* L3 Technologies acquired Doss Aviation, a provider of outsourced flight training and services.
* Palmarium, a Swiss investor, bought global MVNO.
* TDC purchased mobile virtual network operator Plenti, which offers services to consumers using the network of TDC rival 3 Denmark. The deal was worth EUR10 million.
* Zix, a leader in e-mail security, acquired the Entelligence Messaging Server technology, an e-mail encryption solution, and the related business from Entrust Datacard, a leading provider of trusted identity and secure transaction technology solutions.
* The following patent and lawsuit activity:
* WeWork, the behemoth co-work company valued at $20 billion, has filed a complaint with New York's Southern District Court, alleging China-based UrWork is guilty of trademark infringement.
* Bain Capital, now in the lead to buy Toshiba Corporation's prized memory chip unit, has brought in Dell and other tech firms as new members of its consortium to bolster its bid.
* Facebook has been fined EUR1.2 million for allegedly collecting personal information from users in Spain that could then be used for advertising.
* Google has appealed against a record EUR2.4 billion EU antitrust fine, with its chances of success boosted by Intel's partial victory last week against another EU sanction.
* The Indian government has given the go-ahead for state-owned telco BSNL to spin off its towers business into a separate company. BSNL has a portfolio of 66 000 mobile towers, around 15% of the total number of telecoms towers in India.
* JD.com and top Thai retailer Central Group will form a $500 million joint venture in e-commerce and financial technology.
* The US president has blocked Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a Chinese-backed private equity firm, from buying Lattice Semiconductor, a US-based chipmaker.
* US president Donald Trump's administration has told US government agencies to remove Kaspersky Lab products from their networks, saying it was concerned the Moscow-based cyber security firm was vulnerable to Kremlin influence and that using its anti-virus software could jeopardise national security.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from Oracle.
* Satisfactory year-end figures from Eir.
* Mixed quarterly figures from EFI, with revenue up but profit down.
* The appointments of Michel Combes, group CEO and chief executive of parent company Altice; and Graeme Oxby, who has been appointed as CEO of Lebara.
* The resignation of Michel Paulin, CEO of SFR.
* The departures of Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, which is now owned by Facebook; and Ratheesan Yoganathan, CEO of Lebara.

* EMEA/Africa:
* The overall MEA hardcopy peripherals market grew 17.4% year on year in Q217 to total 1.19 million units, according to IDC.

* Worldwide:
* In the second quarter of 2017, worldwide server revenue increased 2.8% year on year, while shipments grew 2.4% from the second quarter of 2016, according to Gartner.
* Vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 6.3% year on year to $15.7 billion in 2Q17, according to IDC. Overall server market growth rebounded after several slow quarters, as much of the market had been waiting for availability of Intel's new Skylake processors. While demand from cloud service providers propped up overall market performance, many other areas of the server market are still stagnant. Worldwide server shipments increased 1.9% year over year to 2.45 million units in 2Q17.
* Vendors will ship a total of 121.7 million wearable devices this year, marking a 16.6% increase from the 104.4 million units shipped in 2016, according to IDC. The wearables market is forecast to maintain this pace of growth, with shipments reaching 229.5 million units in 2021, resulting in a five-year CAGR of 17.2%.
* Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue was up 2.9% year on year and reached $10 billion in 2Q17, according to IDC.
* The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network market segments grew 2.5% year on year in 2Q17, finishing at $2.37 billion, according to IDC.
* The total value of the global market for 3D sensing modules used in mobile devices is estimated to reach $1.5 billion in 2017, and is forecast to grow at a massive CAGR of 209% to around $14 billion in 2020, according to TrendForce.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.1%
* FTSE100: Down 2.2%
* DAX: Up 1.7%
* NYSE (Dow): Up 2.2% (an all-time high reached during the week)
* S&P 500: Up 1.6% (an all-time high reached during the week)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.4% (an all-time high reached during the week)
* Nikkei225: Up 3.3%
* Hang Seng: Up 0.5%
* Shanghai: Down 0.3%

* International:
* Navicure, a healthcare technology company backed by Bain Capital, acquiring ZirMed, a provider of software to hospitals, physician practices and other healthcare organisations to assist them in revenue cycle management.

* South Africa:
* The managers of SA's WirelessG, trading under the brand G-Connect, buying the business.

Inc magazine has recently published its 2017 '5 000' list of its annual ranking of the fastest growing private companies in America. Included in the top 100 are:
* 1: Skillz, a software gaming company.
* 7: AutomotiveMastermind, a software company that develops predictive analytics and marketing automation technology for the automotive industry.
* 30: Spar Information Services, which offers enterprise-class services in big data, data warehousing, business intelligence and software development.
* 32: RelationEdge, a business products and services company that helps companies implement Salesforce by customising it, integrating it with third-party applications and providing ongoing services and support.
* 39: Dealer Inspire, a software company that makes four software products for automotive dealerships, including technology for real-time online car purchasing.
* 46: ByteCubed, an IT services company that provides software development and technology services to companies and government agencies.
* 54: Boomsourcing, a company that helps companies grow their customer base, manage customer care and back-office support, using a combination of human representatives and proprietary software called Perfect Pitch.
* 55: Clearview, a software company that makes software for the logistics industry, which helps companies plan and execute shipments of all kinds.
* 57: Thought Logic Consulting, which provides consulting in a range of areas, including mergers and acquisitions, organisational change, analytics and strategy.
* 59: InfoScout, which captures consumers' shopping data through its portfolio of mobile apps and provides the information to major brands and retailers.
* 62: Allego, a software company that makes a mobile sales learning platform to help workforces share content, master their pitch and improve performance.
* 76: ServiceTitan, a software company that makes software used by plumbing, HVAC and electrical companies to streamline and grow their businesses.
* 77: Agema Technology, an IT services company that offers IT professional services, enterprise solutions and systems integration for public and private sector clients
* 86: A Prentice Ray & Associates, a company that provides IT, app development, cyber security, administrative support, real property management and acquisitions and communications services to government and industry.