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South Africa: Telviva completes buy-out of AnD Communications

By , Portals editor
17 Nov 2020

Telviva, formerly Connection Telecom, has increased its shareholding in AnD Communications to 100% of the issued equity. The total investment amounts to R8.4-million.

According to a statement released to the media, this will not only strengthen the footprint of the cloud communications focused business, but will also enable Telviva to extend the benefit of cloud-based communications services to companies looking to migrate from premise-based systems.

Formed in 1988, AnD Communications (‘AnD’) has a proud history in voice and data communications solutions, servicing primarily the KwaZulu-Natal market.

AnD was established to provide alternative products and services into the newly deregulated PBX market at the time.

Originally, Telviva and AnD entered a white label partnership in 2015 to provide KZN customers with access to the greater range of services that the cloud would unlock.

For customers, it would mean a reduction of costs - while AnD would benefit from expanding its value proposition beyond selling hardware into more scalable and customisable cloud-based solutions.

In 2018, Telviva acquired 51% of the shares in AnD, establishing a co-ownership agreement to assist it with the virtualisation of its cloud communication products and white labelling Telviva cloud services.

This year, Telviva increased its shareholding - with AnD co-owner Kelvin Brown exchanging his shares for shares in Telviva.

The companies explain that Jill Thompson, the other co-owner of AnD, and Brown will remain on the board of the company, with Brown being named Managing Director. The AnD staff will be unaffected by the buy-out.

Telviva’s CEO, David Meintjes.
Telviva’s CEO, David Meintjes.

Telviva’s CEO, David Meintjes, said: “It wholly aligns shareholder interests. More importantly, it enables a more cohesive approach to extend the unified communications and collaboration tools of Telviva to customers in KZN. Ultimately, it will engender speed to the digital transformation requiring multi-channel communications such as cloud PBX fixed and mobile, chat, video, contacts management, and integrations into underlying business systems to improve the quality of engagements."

Already, Telviva has converted 60% of the AnD customer base to the cloud, with the remainder likely to make the move as determined by their strategic focus areas.

Brown confirms that the overall winner in this partnership has to be the existing and future customers of AnD.

“Telviva opens up a fantastic migration path to the cloud from legacy telephony products, and we have engineered it as such that a forklift approach is not required. This year has seen our Telviva clients benefit from instant home working during lockdown, and now with Telviva One, access to a full UCC suite.

“The highlight of Telviva One for me, is that it is a South African product but of world-class standard. Locally developed, supported and hosted meaning all traffic stays within our borders making voice and video call quality exemplary. This sets Telviva One apart from the international players, and also brings us in at a South African price point as well which will appeal to the KZN market.

AnD is proud of our growth to date, and proud to be part of Telviva, and we look forward to the road ahead. We assure our customers that it is business as usual in terms of your existing touchpoints within AnD” said Brown.

The companies confirmed that the extension of cloud services into other jurisdictions follows a partnership model and has no bearing on the AnD investment.

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