Speculation over whether Johnnic Holdings (JNC) may dispose of its media assets continues to make the rounds, but the group’s chief operating officer, Jacob Modise, says it is all ‘nonsense’.
On Monday media reports claimed that Johnnic was planning to offload its media assets in an effort to streamline its operations and focus on its core business in MTN Group.
Modise told I-Net Bridge that at any given point in time the group is looking to unlock value and there are ongoing exercises investigating possibilities to enable this to happen.
“Every exercise could end up in a transaction, but it also may not. Talk that the group is offloading its media assets is pure speculation. If there was any transaction there would be a cautionary announcement,” he said.
Modise added that Johnnic Communications has performed reasonably well in its sector and still holds value for the group.
“While it may not be necessary to hold central control of every sector, we would only bring in changes if it was going to ensure further value to the shareholders,” he said.
Analysts agree that it is no secret that further unbundling in the listed media, telecommunications and entertainment empowerment group is necessary to increase value, but say that this has been acknowledged for some time and the nature of the group’s assets makes any rapid sell off unlikely.
BJM media analyst Harold Bopalamo says the diversity of the range of assets the group holds makes it difficult to guess who prospective buyers would be if further unbundling did occur.
“There are those, like Caxton, who may be interested in a part of the media assets Jonhnnic presently holds, but would not particularly want the whole bundle. There are also vital competition issues and empowerment issues which have to be considered.” – I-Net Bridge