* Auction suspended due to “legal proceedings”
* Vodacom in long-standing battle with Congolese partner
(Adds details)
JOHANNESBURG, June 4 (Reuters) – The Democratic Republic of
Congo Supreme Court has suspended a planned mandatory auction of
shares in the local unit of South African mobile phone provider
Vodacom, the parent company said on Monday.
The auction was planned for June 3 but was suspended pending
the outcome of “certain legal proceedings”, the group said in a
statement, without giving further details.
Vodacom, a unit of Britain’s Vodafone Plc, said on
May 21 it would fight a court ruling which said that it must pay
$21 million in fees to local consultant Namemco Energy or face
the sale of all its shares in the Congolese unit.
The company was already locked in a long-standing battle
over fees with its partner in the DRC, Congolese Wireless
Network.
It had been looking at options to exit the business, but
that process has been halted by the suit from Namemco.
The value of the unit is also disputed. Congolese Wireless
Network chairman Alieu Conteh told Reuters in 2010 that Vodacom
Congo was worth more than $1.5 billion, a figure Vodacom quickly
described as “ludicrous”.
Vodacom’s major African operations are in South Africa, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, where it is fighting
to defend market share from larger competitors such as MTN Group
and India’s Bharti Airtel.
Vodacom shares in Johannesburg were up 0.48 percent at
102.15 rand at 1001 GMT compared with a 0.31 percent fall in the
JSE Top-40 index of blue-chip companies.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Ed Cropley)
© Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
