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It is no secret that Vodafone has been facing serious financial pressures recent years, with investors squeezing the multinational operator to implement major changes and turn its fortunes around.
Indeed, for many years Vodafone has been relying on the prospect of consolidation in its most competitive markets – including Spain, Italy, and the UK – to alleviate the financial strain. However, despite rumours (and seemingly progress with Three in the UK), few deals have ultimately been struck, leaving the company’s management to face the ire of its disgruntled shareholders.
By October last year, one Vodafone’s most outspoken investors, Cevian Capital, had sold most of its stake in the company, arguing the operator’s situation appeared unlikely to improve. Just a week ago, another of Vodafone’s activist investors, Coast Capital, was reported as offloading its shares, saying that the strategy behind its initial investment had proven ‘incorrect’.
Not all of Vodafone’s investors appear to be so pessimistic, however.
e&, formally Etisalat, took a near 10% stake in Vodafone back in May last year for £3.3 billion, saying at the time that the opportunity would allow them to “gain significant exposure to a world leader in connectivity and digital services” as well as develop their international portfolio.
Since then, the Emirati operator group has gradually increased its stake in Vodafone, upping its investment to 11% in December last year and reportedly now 12%.
“Executed at what we believe is an attractive valuation, the investment rationale is unchanged from our announcement on the 14th of May 2022, specifically to obtain significant exposure to a global leader, and leverage potential commercial partnerships, and realize a future return on our investment,” explained the operator in a statement.
Etisalat rebranded as e& back in February, splitting its operations into various arms, including e& Life (consumer services), e& Enterprise (enterprise services), and e& Capital (investment). The move was aimed not only at increasing the company’s ability to capitalise on emerging opportunities, but also at expanding into international markets – both of which will seemingly be facilitated by its stake in Vodafone.
For Vodafone itself, meanwhile, major changes are already taking place. Vodafone’s CEO of four years, Nick Read, stepped down from the role at the end of last year and additional executive positions have been reshuffled since the start of the year.
Vodafone’s head of finance, Margherita Della Valle, is serving as interim CEO until a replacement for Read can be found.
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Also in the news:
Rethinking retail: T-Mobile lays off around 600 retail staff
Exploring a collaborative approach to digital skills development
Israel’s Cognyte embroiled in Myanmar spyware scandal
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Four interesting moves in four different metro and regional US markets to note this week: … [visit site to read more]
There may be another subsea cable option in the Caribbean in a couple years. Telxius and América Móvil are collaborating to build a new submarine cable system between Florida and Guatemala, with an eye toward connecting the Atlantic and Pacific ecosystems via a new, alternative route. … [visit site to read more]
The Raxio Group, a pan-African data centre developer and operator, has announced that it is investing in and establishing Raxio Angola, which it says is the first state-of-the-art, carrier neutral, Tier III data centre in the country.
Angola’s digital and telecommunications ecosystems have been developing rapidly, which, Raxio says, provides a growth opportunity to become a strategic connectivity hub in the region, including significant cross-border traffic with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Raxio is already building a facility in Kinshasa. With no existing carrier-neutral, Tier III-certified data centres, Raxio Angola will be a key interlink between terrestrial and submarine connectivity in the country, serving both local and international demand.
Set to be commissioned in February 2024, Raxio Angola will be located in the Cacuaco district, on the outskirts of Luanda close to submarine cable landing sites and not far from the central business district of the capital. Land has already been secured, allowing Raxio to build a facility to deliver more than 6MW of IT capacity.
Raxio’s prime real estate site in Cacuaco benefits from access to reliable grid power, terrestrial fibre connectivity and road infrastructure, and is sited strategically to serve as a suitable location for both primary and disaster recovery needs of customers.
Raxio Angola will offer its customers an optimized environment for their IT equipment in what it calls a state-of-the-art ‘metro-edge’ facility. The data centre will be fully equipped with technology solutions that not only ensure full redundancy and maximized uptime, but also optimize power consumption and energy efficiency.
With PTC underway, there’s plenty of global backbone and subsea news out there, here’s a few interesting items of note: … [visit site to read more]
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Israeli software firm Cognyte is coming under scrutiny this week following media reports that the company’s surveillance technology may have been used to commit human rights abuses in Myanmar.
Documents shared by activist group Justice for Myanmar show a January 2021 letter from MPT to the Burmese regulator referencing Cognyte as the winning vendor for an intercept technology tender.
The documents show that the purchase order was issued “by 30th Dec 2020” – a little over a month before a military junta overthrew Myanmar’s civilian government.
Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer, has reportedly sent a letter to the Israeli Attorney General calling for a criminal investigation into Cognyte and the nation’s defence and foreign ministries, accusing them of aiding the Burmese military to commit crimes against humanity.
The letter claims that Cognyte “should have known” they were providing technology that would be used to commit crimes against humanity, noting that the Burmese military had already openly rejected the results of the November 2020 democratic election when the contract was signed.
But beyond the moral implications of selling surveillance technology to repressive regimes, there is also a legal element at play here.
Back in 2016, the Myanmar military became infamous for their genocidal oppression of the Muslim Rohingya people, killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands more to flee to neighbouring countries. In response, various nations placed sanctions on Myanmar, with the US and the EU both ceasing to supply the Myanmar government with military equipment.
Israel, however, continued to export weapons and equipment to the Burmese government until 2018, only stopping when media pressure grew too intense.
As such, Mack argues that any 2020 deal between Cognyte to sell this equipment to MPT was illegal, with intercept spyware tech classified as defence equipment under Israeli law.
It is currently unclear whether the spyware technology has been actively deployed by MPT, though anonymous sources speaking to Reuters confirmed that the technology was tested by the operator. Other sources also confirmed that some form of intercept spyware was used by the operator, though Cognyte was not referenced specifically.
Cognyte and MPT have refused to comment on the matter.
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Also in the news:
Tech Mahindra and Microsoft team up for 5G core cloudification offering
London staff to take the brunt of Vodafone job cuts
Virgin Mobile begins migrating customers to O2 packages
With all its new buildouts here in the US, Zayo’s European footprint hasn’t been getting the same level of public love of late. But today it got a little bit more attention, as Zayo has announced the addition of a new 400G-enabled intercity route. … [visit site to read more]
