Kagiso’s Morobe ‘delighted’ with approval of Juta takeover
KAGISO Media CEO Murphy Morobe says the company is delighted with the unconditional approval of his company’s deal with publishing firm Juta.
The transaction was approved by the Takeover Regulations Panel last week, a few days after the unconditional approval by the Competition Tribunal.
The R300m acquisition is the latest in a list of diverse companies Kagiso has acquired, which have helped the company overtake Avusa Media as the JSE’S secondlargest media company by market capitalisation behind Naspers.
Kagiso, which had a market capitalisation of about R2,6bn on Friday, overtook Avusa, which has a market capitalisation of about R2,5bn, in February this year.
Kagiso, a black-owned investment holding company, has acquired digital and publishing operations in the past few years.
Juta is a South African provider of legal and regulatory information and the largest local publisher of student textbooks on law, commerce, accounting, communications, social science, health, and education.
The deal follows Kagiso’s disposal of its 50% stake in publishing firm Lexis Nexis, for R565m to publishing house Reed Elsevier SA in October last year, a decision it took after it failed to acquire a majority share in the company.
Mr Morobe said Juta matched Kagiso’s strategic and investment parameters, with its “well-established brand” in the information services sector and “highly cashgenerative business model that is based on strong annuity revenue streams”.
He said having acquired all the equity in Juta, Kagiso could use its strong balance sheet to seek out growth opportunities.
“Our extensive media experience across our diversified asset portfolio will enable us to explore synergies and drive Juta’s future value creation. In particular, Kagiso Media is well placed to support Juta’s strategy to grow its products and services in the context of the now all-pervasive new media environment,” Mr Morobe said.
Juta CEO Lynne du Toit said that placing this iconic brand in a black-owned media company with an appetite for investing in growth initiatives boded well for Juta’s growth into the future.
“We also see significant synergies within the group that are able to augment Juta’s strategic plans that are already in place. As such, Juta’s experienced management team is fully committed to driving growth in this exciting new context,” Ms du Toit said.