Shareholders of South Africa’s Blue Label Telecoms, which has lost almost half of its value since January, have unanimously approved the sale of two assets for some ZAR 1 billion, Bloomberg reported. They approved the sale of 85 percent of its stake in subsidiary Blue Label Mobile for ZAR 450 million to DNI, a SIM card distributor that is partly owned by Net 1. Shareholders also approved the sale by its subsidiary The Prepaid Company of its interest in mobile phones and tablets distributor 3G Mobile for ZAR 544 million, again to DNI.
Shareholders present at the general meeting on 4 December voted 100 percent in favour of the transactions. Votes cast represented some three quarters of the company’s total shares in issue. Blue Label said when it announced the disposals in September that the aim was to protect its core business of distributing pre-paid airtime and electricity, and that it will use the proceeds to pay off debt resulting from purchases made in the past two years.