Kenyan technology supplier and corporate Internet services company, AccessKenya Group, is set to be taken over by Dimension Data (DiData) for more than Ksh3billion.
This comes after the formal support by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) last week, after reviewing a Shareholders Circular from the AccessKenya Group Board
Dimension Data will pay AccessKenya shareholders Ksh14.00 per share for 218 million average shares, a 42 percent premium on the AccessKenya price of Ksh9.85 of which the closing price was on Friday 3 May 2013.
It also denotes a premium of 105% over the 90-day volume-weighted average price of AccessKenya shares, and shareholders in the East African company will be entitled to receive the final dividend of Ksh0.30 per share proposed by the AccessKenya board for the 2012 financial year.
“We are pleased to recommend the Dimension Data offer to our shareholders. The Board of Directors believes that the time is right for the business to move into the ownership of a large organization such as Dimension Data. The Group has a vast global footprint and is wholly-owned by NTT, the largest telecommunications company in the world by revenue,” said Daniel Ndonye, Chairman of the Board of AccessKenya.
Didata already operates in Kenya through subsidiaries Dimension Data Kenya, Internet Solutions Kenya and Plessey Kenya and plans to merge its Internet Solutions Kenya business with AccessKenya.
In 2007, AccessKenya Group became the first publicly listed information and communications Technology Company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
The Group includes the Internet service provider business as well as data carrier network operator Broadband Access, OpenView Business Systems, which was acquired in 2007, and its most recent acquisition, Satori Solutions, in 2009.
With Ksh1.9 billion in annual revenue for the 2012 financial year, with projected revenue of around Ksh2 billion for 2013, AccessKenya is one of the largest internet service providers in the East Africa region.