Blue Label seeks new strategic investor for Cell C
September 12th 2023
Blue Label Telecoms, which is seeking control of Cell C, wants to bring in a new strategic investor into the mobile operator in which it currently holds a 49.5% stake. That’s according to Blue Label co-CEO Brett Levy, who was speaking to TechCentral in a wide-ranging interview on the TechCentral Show (TCS) published on Tuesday — watch or listen to it here. Levy’s comments follow the announcement last week that Blue Label will apply to the Competition Commission and communications regulator Icasa to take its shareholding in Cell C beyond 50%, a move that will give it control of the company for the first time. In the TechCentral interview, Levy – who is joined on the show by his brother, co-CEO Mark Levy – said in response to a question about the future of Cell C: “Cell C will have a ‘big brother’. Whoever that may be, that is coming – another investor, for sure. “And it will be a value-adding investor. It will not be a money person; it will be someone who adds value in strategy,” he said. “It could be a bank or a retailer or another network, but it will be a strategic partner. And I don’t see that in five years, I see that in the next two to three years.” Levy described Cell C as an “important cog” in the Blue Label machine. But, he said, Cell C “needs a ‘bigger bigger brother’ than Blue Label… We thought we were the big brother, [but] we became the little brother [and] now we need big brother. It will be a nice combination with us in it, and someone else.”