16 July 2010
Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), a leading global telecoms provider, has reached a deal with two major shareholders of Dimension Data that will see NTT acquiring the JSE-listed company for approximately £2.1-billion (about R24.3-billion).
NTT’s offer has secured the support of the boards of both the companies, as well as South Africa’s Venfin DD Holdings and Allan Gray, who collectively own 52% of Dimension Data’s issued shares.
New standards, cloud computing
NTT president and CEO Satoshi Miura said that by leveraging the complementary strengths of both companies, they would be able to provide global, end-to-end, high-quality ICT services.
“Dimension Data and NTT share the common vision to create new services and values to succeed in the coming age of cloud computing,” he said. “Our combined strength will allow us to accelerate execution of our strategies and achieve our shared vision.”
Dimension Data executive chairman Jeremy Ord said that together, NTT and Dimension Data would define “a new industry standard” for IT service quality, delivery, and support.
“NTT’s network capabilities and assets coupled with Dimension Data’s global system integrator expertise skills create an incredible powerful and unprecedented combination of capabilities and skills,” he said.
“The combined companies will hold a strong competitive position serving global corporations [that are] moving to managed infrastructure services and cloud computing.”
Shared vision, entrepreneurial culture
Ord added that he believed the two companies had a shared vision on how the market would evolve, and the combination of the two’s resources would allow them to accelerate their medium- and long-term strategies.
Dimension Data CEO Brett Dawson said that NTT recognised the value of Dimension Data’s entrepreneurial culture and business model, adding that the company’s operational processes, brands and methodologies would all remain.
“NTT provides a world-class IT and communications platform globally while Dimension Data brings expertise and capabilities in specialist managed IT infrastructure and services,” he said.
“We are very excited to begin collaborating with NTT to expand and deliver this joint value to our clients.”
SAinfo reporter
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