Webafrica has reached an agreement to acquire Mweb, one of South Africa’s largest and most established internet service providers (ISPs), from Dimension Data. The deal has been finalized, with the parties now awaiting approval from the Competition Commission, expected by November 1.
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Webafrica’s CEO, Sean Nourse, confirmed that all necessary paperwork has been signed. Pending approval, this merger will effectively double the size of Webafrica, adding over 300 Mweb employees to its existing workforce of 350, and there are no anticipated layoffs. Mweb, led by Manelisa Mavuso, will continue to operate independently.
The move to acquire Mweb came after Dimension Data put the business up for sale. While Nourse did not disclose the exact number of Mweb customers, it’s in the hundreds of thousands, with a significant portion utilizing fibre services. Mweb also maintains a substantial legacy copper DSL base and fixed-LTE service customers.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Nourse confirmed that Webafrica would fund it entirely through its own balance sheet.
Founded in 1997, Mweb is well-known for its historic “Big Black Box” marketing campaign that encouraged people to sign up for dial-up internet services before the advent of Telkom’s DSL.
In 2017, Internet Solutions (IS), a subsidiary of Dimension Data, acquired Mweb from Naspers. The sale does not include Mweb’s business customer base, which was integrated into IS.
According to Dimension Data CEO Alan Turnley-Jones, the sale aligns with the company’s strategy of concentrating on core markets that serve enterprise clients. He noted that Dimension Data is on a path to integrate with its global shareholder, NTT, and divesting Mweb will expedite this process while allowing them to focus on their primary competencies and leverage NTT’s platform-delivered managed services capabilities.
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