Rumours surfaced during February that MTN was planning on moving its group operations to Dubai. This was vigorously denied by the company. However, some global management services departments are based in Dubai to serve to increasingly strategic regions such as Nigeria and Iran. Both of these countries have greater growth opportunities than South Africa and Nigeria generates more revenue than South Africa. This trend is bound to continue.
According to the ITWeb article, at least one analyst, reckons that MTN's longer term prospects are better served by a primary listing outside of South Africa.
Looking at other companies in the country there is a definite possibility that companies with similar strategies will be faced with the same decisions on greater investment in service infrastructure outside of South Africa.
Standard Bank, for instance, is looking to emerging economies for new engines of growth. While revenue from outside South Africa is relatively meagre, the greatest growth opportunities clearly lie in other regions of Africa or offshore. Will we be having similar conversations about the banking group in the short to medium term?
For these companies, South Africa will always be a strong revenue base but to become a truly global company some of the South African-ness may have be sacrificed.
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