Marcia Klein

Marcia Klein

After the drama of the weekend, Vodacom's listing on the JSE was a quiet affair.

The listing, which took place at the JSE to the strains of the Vodacom choir, saw the share start to trade at R59,50.

Vodacom was told late on Sunday that its listing could go ahead after an unsuccessful court bid by Cosatu and the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to halt the listing.

The court decision, dismissing the urgent application with costs, follows Icasa's decision late on Friday to backtrack on its earlier decision to let Telkom sell 15percent of Vodacom to Vodafone, a deal which precipitated Vodacom's listing.

Referring to the weekend's events, JSE chief executive Russell Loubser started off proceedings saying that "we certainly didn't cover ourselves in glory as South Africa".

Vodacom's new chairperson Peter Moyo said that the weekend's events "demonstrated that we need to engage more with some stakeholders", adding that Vodacom could never have foreseen what took place on Friday.

Before trade started at 9am, there were bids for the share at R110 but it traded at R59,50 in the first trade of the day. After reaching R64,95, it was trading at about R59 by midday and slightly lower towards the end of the day. Vodacom's total value moved between about R88billion and R93billion, ranking it around 11th position on the JSE by market value.

Telkom lost 50percent to trade at R56 at the start of trade to take into account the loss of the Vodacom value.

Telkom shareholders became Vodacom shareholders too, and will still benefit from a R19 a share special dividend following the Vodafone deal.

Vodacom chief executive Pieter Uys said that in 1993, only one in 10 people had telephones. Today there are more than 50million active simcards in the country and about a third of the African continent is connected.

He said the new relationship with Vodafone was good for Vodacom, which had ambitious plans.