NTT to acquire South Africa’s Dimension Data for $3.2 billion

Asia's largest telecommunication company Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) today said that it is buying South Africa's specialist IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data Holdings Plc for $3.2 billion.

London and Johannesburg listed Dimension Data is a networking and network-related IT solutions and services provider with 6,000 customers and operations in 49 countries on six continents.

It has strategic collaboration with world's largest networking gear maker Cisco as well as with Microsoft. For fiscal 2009, the company reported revenues of $3.9 billion and net profit of $145 million.

Tokyo-based NTT, which owns Japan's biggest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo, will use its massive $10.35 billion cash pile as well as loan facilities and offer 120 pence in cash for every share of Dimension Data, a premium of 18 per cent to its yesterday's closing price, valuing the company at $3.2 billion.

The acquisition offer, which has been accepted by a majority of Dimension's shareholders, would more than double NTT's overseas revenue to $7 billion.

The acquisition would expand NTT's global footprint as the group's business mainly focuses on Asia and also covers Europe and the US, whereas Dimension Data, in addition to theses countries, also covers Africa, the Middle East and Australia. With this combination, NTT hopes to become a one-stop provider of a broad and high-quality end-to-end total ICT services offering.