Billionaire Patrice Motsepe’s Africa Rainbow Capital (ARC) has made an additional R81 million investment in telecoms company Rain.
This emerged when ARC, which holds a 20.25% stake in Rain, announced its interim financial results for the six months to 31 December.
The company's effective interest in Rain has increased by R303 million (additions of R81 million and net revaluations of R222 million) to R4.8 billion in the period under review.
ARC notes the increase in valuation can be attributed to the business progressing past the significant net cash outflow point and the subsequent launch of rainOne.
Last year, Rain introduced rainOne, which combines mobile and fixed-wireless plans, offering uncapped data, free monthly calls and data for two phones, and a fixed-5G connection.
According to ARC, rainOne’s performance in the current period has been pleasing, and customer growth is encouraging.
In a statement, ARC says Rain has established itself as a strong brand with a growing market share in low-cost data and mobile services in South Africa.
Rain is expecting to achieve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of over R2 billion for the year ended February 2024, says ARC.
It is controlled by diverse shareholders, including Quarme Private Equity (Paul Harris): 41.36%; ARC: 20.25%; Pluvial: 11.75%; Montegray Capital (Michael Jordaan): 11.53%; and Ata Fund 1: 6.42%.
Rain offers wholesale services to other telcos and retail products directly to consumers across 4G and 5G networks. The telco launched its direct 4G retail services in 2018, and the continent’s first 5G standalone network in 2019.
Rain has a portfolio of licensed spectrum that features capacity and coverage bands, having acquired additional spectrum of 2x10MHz of 700MHz and 20MHz of 2 600MHz in the spectrum auction in 2022.
ARC notes the 700MHz band establishes Rain’s position as a full-service retail 4G and 5G network provider.
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