Picture: ISTOCK
Picture: ISTOCK
INVESTMENT house Stellar Capital Partners (SCP), where retail tycoon Christo Wiese has an influential stake, has sold a 51.1% stake in unlisted electronics manufacturer Tellumat to empowerment group Masimong Technologies.
The R180m deal, announced on Friday, comes not long after SCP raised its controlling stake in Tellumat to 100%. SCP CEO Charles Pettit said it was critical for Tellumat to have the appropriate empowerment levels to win state tenders.
He stressed that SCP remained upbeat about Tellumat’s longer-term prospects and would not be selling down its remaining 48.9% stake in the company. Tellumat provides technology solutions and services to the information and communications technology, defence, energy, and transportation sectors.
In the year to end-September 2015, Tellumat generated revenue of R551m, and pretax profits of R30m. Its net assets were reflected as about R369m.
The Tellumat deal is the latest in a series of transactions initiated by SCP.
The company was formed about two years ago (via a reverse listing into the old ConvergeNet shell), but managed to raise R1bn in fresh capital via a scrip offering in October 2015.
SCP is working on a transaction to take over asset management firm Prescient, and is widely rumoured to be keen to buy out minorities at its industrial subsidiary Torre.
Masimong, headed by businessman Mike Teke, holds interests in mining, agriculture, energy, chemicals and financial services. SCP’s SENS announcement noted that Masimong’s R180m price tag could be subject to a proportionate downward adjustment if the entry valuation exceeded seven times the normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of Tellumat for the 12 months ending June 2017.
The deal will be settled by a vendor-funding arrangement that will see SCP subscribing for 180,353 redeemable preference shares in Masimong Technologies. Masimong will then refinance the vendor funding.