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South African IT Firm Cancels London Stock Exchange Listing

South African IT Firm Cancels London Stock Exchange Listing

South African IT firm Datatec has confirmed that Thursday would be their final day of trading on the London Stock Exchange.

The Johannesburg-listed technology group decided to cancel their London listing on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the English bourse from 7:00am GMT on Dec. 8, 2017, according to Businesstech.

Operating in 70 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, Datatec is an international ICT solutions and services group based in Sandton, Johannesburg.

The London listing was originally made in October 2006 with the aim of providing the group with greater access to investors and capital with which to support the continued growth of its international businesses, but it had failed to provide those benefits.

“The primary listing of Datatec shares on the JSE will continue and is not affected by the cancellation of the AIM listing,” Datatec said, according to Sharenet.

“However, the AIM listing has not had the desired effect of diversifying Datatec’s investor base. The liquidity of the shares on AIM has been very poor and no significant investors from the UK market have invested in Datatec shares via AIM,” the group added.

Busy year for South African IT firm

It has been a busy year for the Datatec, as the company recently completed the sale of U.S. subsidiary Westcon-Comstor’s operations in North America and Latin America, as well as 10 percent of Westcon-Comstor to Fortune 500 company SYNNEX.

In September the deal, which could be worth up to $830 million, with $630 million paid in cash and up to $200 million payable as a cash earn-out, was completed, ITWeb reports.

SYNNEX, based in California, is a technology supply chain services company worth $14.1 billion that employs around 110 000 people.

Datatec’s share price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange had risen 17 percent between January and August, with most gains arriving in June after the sale of U.S. subsidiary Westcon-Comstor was first announced, Businessday reported.

As part of the deal, Datatec CEO Jens Montanana was appointed to the board of SYNNEX in a non-executive capacity.