Profile

CIV Holdings is an investment holding company with its major asset being Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) that builds, owns, maintains and monitors infrastructure suitable to carry services such as fibre-optic networks.

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT VENTURES HOLDINGS PROPRIETARY Limited (CIV group)

Remgro has an effective interest of 50.9% in the CIV group, which is active in the telecommunications and information technology sectors. The key operating company of the group is Dark Fibre Africa Proprietary Limited (DFA), which constructs and owns fibre-optic networks.

The CIV group has a March year-end and therefore its results for the twelve months ended 31 March 2015 have been included in Remgro’s results for the year under review. The CIV group’s contribution to Remgro’s headline earnings for the year under review amounted to R51 million (2014: R58 million).

DFA’s revenue for the financial year ended 31 March 2015 in­creased by 19% year on year to R1 047 million (2014: R879 million) mainly as a result of solid growth of 30% in annuity revenue. DFA’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amorti-sation for the period under review increased by 15% to R761 million. The current book value of the fibre-optic network is in excess of R5 billion. DFA has thus far secured a healthy annuity income in excess of R69.5 million per month, with the majority thereof being on long-term contracts with customers. The company lowered its average cost of funding through the refinancing of its debt of R3.5 billion with a consortium of lenders from a project finance structure to a more corporate debt-type structure consisting of R2.5 billion of long-term debt and R1 billion of short-term debt, effective June 2014. One of the main operating challenges that DFA continues to face is the slower than anticipated site build/last mile by customers that affects DFA’s ability to link mobile operator base station sites or enterprise customers to the fibre network, which causes a delay in annuity revenue generation to offset increasing depreciation and finance charges incurred on network rollout costs. DFA experienced delays in wayleave approvals by the local councils planning their own fibre network and by property owners that prevent access to the buildings. To reduce the risk of the slow last mile rollout, DFA acquired Conduct Telecommunication on 1 April 2014. Conduct specialises on the last mile build and completed dark fibre infrastructure access to more than 1 972 buildings and 4 998 end users by the end of March 2015. DFA started their Fibre to the Business (FTTB) rollout in April 2015 and has completed the access build to 860 buildings, adding an additional 2 580 end users to the network to date. Most of DFA’s customers extended their initial contract periods of five years to either 10 or 15 years. The network uptime for the year under review was an excellent 99.99%.

DFA owns fibre network rings in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban (expanding to Pietermaritzburg), Midrand, Centurion and Pretoria. During the past twelve months, the network has been expanded to a further 21 smaller metros, including East London, Polokwane, Tlokwe, Emalahleni and George, to name a few. The Johannesburg-Midrand ring is regarded as one of the most important communication rings in Africa. At 31 March 2015, a total distance of 8 353 km (March 2014: 7 759 km) of fibre network had been completed in the major metropolitan areas and on long-haul routes. Long-haul routes include Durban to the SEACOM landing station in Mtunzini, which route was extended through Empangeni to Gauteng. DFA also completed building a long-haul route to link Cape Town to the West African Cable System (WACS) undersea cable landing station at Yzerfontein and built a route to link the North West province to Gauteng during the year. DFA extended the Mpumalanga routes by linking Secunda and Ermelo to Gauteng.

In 2010, DFA commenced with the fibre-to-tower project linking mobile operators’ base stations to the core communication rings, and the project will continue through 2015 and beyond as demand for mobile backhaul increases due to, amongst others, a strong growth in data demand by smartphones and Long Term Evolution technology. Mobile backhaul is a major growth driver for DFA due to the increased demand for mobile broadband. DFA has 7 180 (March 2014: 5 618) base transceiver station sites on the network that cover three of the four mobile operators. The next growth drivers for DFA will be the enterprise market and the public sector, which have shown a definite increase in demand in the last twelve months. DFA has 3 190 enterprise market links and developed new products to meet the demand of the enterprise market. DFA monitors and maintains a total of 9 431 (March 2014: 7 348) customer circuits.

DFA is also part of a consortium that will provide fibre con­nectivity to the Gauteng provincial government buildings and the surrounding schools as part of a separate project and is in the process to connect the first 100 schools. The company also initiated the deployment of proof of concepts Fibre to the Home (FTTH) projects in selected suburbs in Johannesburg.

DFA has signed commercial lease agreements with 74 (March 2014: 56) customers that have Electronic Communication Network Licences ranging from the largest incumbents, to banks, to small niche operators. The revenue model is flexible to adapt to the customers’ needs, and DFA either sells an indefeasible right of use agreement, which is a lump sum in advance, or on an annuity basis with multi-year contracts of mostly up to 15 years. Presently, approximately 75% of total revenue is annuity revenue. The future value of the current annuity contract base is in excess of R9 billion. DFA is experiencing a customer churn rate of less than 1%.

Profile

SEACOM provides high-capacity international fibre-optic bandwidth for Southern and East Africa.

SEACOM capital Limited (SEACOM)

Remgro has an effective interest of 25% in SEACOM which operates an undersea fibre-optic cable to connect Southern and Eastern Africa with Europe and Asia. The cable connects South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Djibouti with the rest of the world via landing points in France (and onwards to London) and India. Landlocked countries (Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, etc.) are connected by terrestrial backhaul.

SEACOM has a December year-end, but its results for the twelve months to 30 June 2015 have been included in Remgro’s results for the year under review. SEACOM’s contribution to Remgro’s headline earnings for the year under review amounted to R24 million (2014: headline loss of R6 million). The increase in earnings is mainly as a result of a decrease in direct costs, amongst others cable cut and cost of access provisions, as well as reduced overheads.

SEACOM provides high-capacity international bandwidth services to customers in the form of International Private Line and IP Transit Services. These services are sold under 12 to 36-month lease contracts and as 15 to 20 year indefeasible right of use (IRU) contracts, which generally include annual maintenance charges over the term. Upfront revenue from IRUs is accounted for over the full term of 15 to 20 years.

SEACOM maintains a proactive approach to ensuring profit­ability, by continually implementing cost-saving initiatives and by introducing a more diversified product range that allows it to capture increased market share by offering a better value proposition against competition from competing cable systems. The company has started a new line of business whereby metro ring fibre and last mile fibre are leased to provide internet and ethernet over Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) products directly to enterprise end users.

Fortunately, increasing demand for faster and better data network services is playing its part in positively ensuring that demand grows above expectations. Furthermore, ongoing reductions in terrestrial costs and increased demand for reliable protected routes around Africa are also leading to increased demand for SEACOM’s services. SEACOM’s ability to adapt to the rapidly evolving market and respond to demand faster than its competition is critical to maintain its ongoing competitive positioning.

Other infrastructure interests