Blue Label Telecoms restructures ahead of Cell C’s JSE listing bid

Stephen Grootes speaks to Duncan McLeod, Founder and Editor at Techcentral, about Blue Label’s strategic restructuring ahead of Cell C’s proposed unbundling and potential listing on the JSE.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.

Blue Label Telecoms (BLT) on Monday confirmed some of the technical details of how it's going to list Cell C on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

A major restructuring of the mobile operator is on the cards ahead of a likely JSE-listing in 2026.

The restructuring would include resolving the major debt issues that have plagued to cellular communications operator for many years, as it lagged behind industry leaders Vodacom and MTN.

Blue Label Telecoms owns a non-controlling 49.53% equity stake in Cell C.  

According to a report on Techcentral.co.za, the Cell C listing is subject to shareholder, regulatory and other approvals.

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Duncan McLeod, Founder and Editor at Techcentral says this is a massive development for Cell C and the telecoms sector in South Africa. 

"It's quite exciting. It's quite a rare thing these days to have a listing on the JSE, and I think even rarer still to have one in the tech sector. So it's quite exciting to have a tech-listing coming up, and one of this magnitude.

- Duncan McLeod, Editor - Techcentral 

"It (Cell C) came along as a latecomers, so didn't have the deep pockets of its larger rivals, so it struggled to compete on infrastructure and to deploy infrastructure across the country on the scale of Vodacom and MTN. It treid to compete, and in trying got itself into huge debt..."

- Duncan McLeod, Editor - Techcentral

"It's actually a miracle that this business (Cell C) is still around, given the difficulties it's been through over the years. I think it shows the tenacity of the Levy brothers who run Blue Label, that they actually saved this thing."

- Duncan McLeod, Editor - Techcentral 

Scroll to the top of the article to listen to the full interview.