‘Shares in Liquid US$135m cash’

ECONET Wireless Zimbabwe (EZW) CEO Douglas Mboweni, has called the company’s equity stake in Liquid Telecom Holdings, which is just under 10 percent, “a US$135 million forex reserve”.

Speaking about the flip up which saw the company take up a stake in Liquid Telecom Holdings Mr Mboweni said: “How many companies in Zimbabwe can say they have an asset on their balance sheet valued at $135 million in United States dollars?

“The recent acquisition of a stake (which is just over 10 percent) in Liquid Telecom by the Commonwealth Development Cor- poration (CDC), one of the most respected Sovereign Wealth Funds, not only validated the original valuation, but it shows that this is a very real asset denominated in US dollars.”

The Econet Wireless Zimbabwe chief executive officer said that while the company would not sell the stake, it gave the Econet additional options.

“Everyone knows that it is very difficult to get your hands on foreign exchange in this country right now.

But with this asset we have options to raise forex when we need it,” he said.

“Right now we need money to upgrade to 5G, and this asset could help us get there.

‘‘This is a huge lifeline to this business.”

Speaking about the recent demerger and separate listing of Cassava Smartech from Econet, Mr Mboweni said spinning off Cassava did not mean that Econet Wireless would lose its innovative edge.

“We have a huge pipeline of innovations that we will roll out that will transform the industry completely.

We don’t talk about them until we are ready to bring them to the market,” he said.

Cassava was spun off and successfully listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) on December 18, and is now worth almost $4 billion.

Its debut on the ZSE makes it the most successful initial listing in Zimbabwean history.