ANA, Africa’s first advanced multimedia and news syndicated service and social media platform, has received a $2bn (R25bn) bid from a technology fund, according to market sources.
ANA has representation in more than 40 African countries, London, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai and Moscow; with a global audience of more than 1.3 billion consumers.
“A technology fund has put in an offer for ANA’s business, which exceeds a call option of $2bn; ANA has 60 days to exercise the option”, the source told BR late yesterday.
Market sources indicated that SoftBank Group, a Japanese fund that recently raised $100bn, has its eyes set on ANA. SoftBank is a Japanese multinational telecoms and internet firm and has operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing.
The other possible buyer was “Facebook, a US-based social media company”, an industry source told BR.
ANA chief executive, Grant Fredericks, didn’t’ confirm or deny the speculation, but told BR that “the market can expect an announcement later this year. I cannot deny that we are in an advance stage with more than one global group interested in buying ANA.”
Fredericks confirmed that “ANA received two offers from two global parties”. ANA is a private company with shareholders from China, the Gulf States and the US”.
Fredericks said, “We are excited to be able to create substantial value for our shareholders in Africa and Bermuda in the very near future. We have invested tens of millions in technology that allows us to provide comprehensive state-of-the-art digital platforms, designed specifically to speedily share large quantities of content to our clients. We produce our own unique copy, according to international best practice and reporting standards”, he said.