The listing of MTN shares on the Lusaka Stock Exchange (LuSE) through Ikulileni Investments has been called off after the share offer was under subscribed.

Ikulileni Investments was set to debut on the LuSE on June 16, 2015 with 11.9 per cent of MTN shares made available to the public, but the offer was shelved with only 24 hours to go before the actual listing.

The share offer was marred by controversy after it was discovered that some directors of MTN, including board chairman Valentine Chitalu, were also shareholders of Ikulileni Investments.

It was further revealed that Ikulileni Investments did not meet the listing rule of having a three-year profitability history since it was only incorporated in October 2014 for purposes of creating a special purpose vehicle for the MTN listing.

Ikulileni Investments also recorded low subscription rates.

It is believed that MTN has lost close to ZMW1 million (US$136,000) in sponsoring the share offer and the entire transaction and will request government for a three-year extension before it can consider coming directly to list on the exchange as part of the licence requirements.

Comverse’s proposed purchase of Acision, the UK messaging firm, reflects a shift in strategy to digital services, and away from the billing business.

The purchase price consists of about US$135 million in cash, 3.13 million shares of Comverse’s common stock and potential earnout payments of up to US$35 million. In addition, the US vendor will seek to maintain Acision’s existing US$157 million senior credit facility following completion of the transaction.

Acision’s secure mobile messaging business will be added to Comverse’s portfolio, which includes data analytics, secure enterprise application-to-person (A2P) messaging, credit orchestration, two-factor authentication and M2M communications, as well as Rich Communication Services (RCS), WebRTC and APIs for service creation.

Back in April, Comverse offloaded what was termed “a substantial majority” of its business support systems (BSS) assets to Amdocs for US$272 million in cash. That deal is expected to close before the end of September 2015.

Acision’s board approved this week’s transaction that, subject to closing conditions, is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter.

The new company will be led by a team made up of executives from both organisations under the leadership of Comverse’s CEO, Philippe Tartavull. Headquarters will be at Comverse’s base in the US.

Vodacom Group’s ZAR7 billion (US$565 million) offer to buy broadband provider Neotel has been approved by South Africa’s communications regulator.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, which has been deliberating the proposal for about a year, will allow Vodacom to proceed with the deal, the regulator’s chairman Stephen Mncube said. The takeover will be subject to compliance with a local ownership law and adherence to terms of the rollout of broadband infrastructure and services, he said.

Vodacom, 65 per cent owned by Vodafone Group, agreed to buy Neotel from Tata Communications in May 2014. The deal would enable Vodacom to extend Internet services for small-to-medium sized businesses.

Competitors MTN and Cell C have previously said they oppose the purchase because they say Vodacom would become too dominant. South Africa’s Competition Commission has yet to rule on the deal.

Huawei announced the appointment of Charles Yang as president of the Middle East region, replacing Shi Yaohong.

Yang joined Huawei in 1999 and has over 16 years of experience in the telecom industry playing a key role in many of Huawei’s milestone global projects. In this time he held a number of senior positions in the company, most notably as president of Huawei’s STC Group account and CEO for Huawei in Shandong, Neimeng, and Liaoning province in China.

Over the last three years, Yang has been active in Saudi Arabia, supporting the development of the telecom industry in the kingdom.

Alcatel-Lucent’s outgoing chief executive, Michel Combes, is reportedly set to join Europe’s communications group Altice, once the sale of the French vendor to Nokia is completed.

According to Challenges magazine, Combes, who announced his resignation as an independent non-executive director at Altice last week, will be brought in to lead the company’s telecom development in Europe.

The company beefed up its European telecom operations over the past year by acquiring Portugal Telecom’s Portuguese assets from Brazil’s Oi, and taking control of French mobile player SFR from Vivendi.

Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that Combes will be stepping down as a result of the Nokia deal but did not announce his next engagement, or departure date. He said in April he would not be taking a role at the combined Nokia-AlcaLu entity, once the €15.6 billion (US$16.6 billion) deal is completed.

Combes joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2013 in a bid to turnaround the troubled vendor’s fortunes following a tumultuous period under predecessor Ben Verwaayen.

Combes has been integral to the company’s sale to Nokia. The revival he inspired is seen as the reason why Nokia decided to take over the whole company, not just its mobile business, thus securing the vendor’s long-term position.

Combes joined Alcatel-Lucent after spending four years as CEO of Vodafone Europe, at a time when he was also courted by SFR, then owned by Vivendi, who named him as the company’s new chief executive in 2012, before the appointment broke down due to a management shakeup.

Altice, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi, will look to Combes’ European telecom experience to integrate its newly acquired businesses.

Altice is also expanding into the US cable market. It recently announced the acquisition of US regional cable operator Suddenlink Communications for US$9.1 billion, after dropping interests in Time Warner Cable.