Don't Try This At Home...

AVUSA: What's in a name?

Actually, there's rather a lot that resides in a name. It's the difference between Tiger Woods and Gert Rautenbach (who?), Ryk Neethling and Luke Wollenschlaeger (who?), Lance Armstrong and Nick van der Leek (hey, I know him!).

But from a branding perspective, one has to be very cautious about changing the name of a company, because years of associations get lost. A case in point: I know a lot of people who still don't refer to the Virgin Active gyms as Virgin Active. They call them Health & Raquet. At Bloemfontein's H&RC - er, I mean Virgin Active club, the H&RC logo is still embedded in the bottom of the pool. What I am saying is you need a very solid rethink, because while it starts with the idea of a new ethos, it is important to follow through with all the rest: an identity change means changing every place where that name appears. Failure to do so dilutes, confuses and mixes up your brand identity.

Avusa means: to arouse or stir up feelings

How will investors buy AVUSA shares? Will you buy Johncom Shares in a company now known as AVUSA? How long will these transitions take? Will email addresses change? What is the AVUSA identity? Will there be a change in direction? How will perceptions change? All this has to be set up, managed and pushed to gain momentum. Brand associations take years to develop. Throwing one away in favor of another may be necessary, but there's an initial overhead to be cognisant of. It doesn't come cheap. Meanwhile, the company formerly known as Johncom has performed well this year:

Results for the six months ended 30 September 2007

Revenue for the six months grew by 16% to R2,974 billion and profit from operations before exceptional items increased by 25% to R409 million.

Our operating media and entertainment assets housed in OpCo performed well growing revenue by 15% and profit by 13%.

We continue to invest in growing our businesses and if we exclude our investments in developing projects our profit in OpCo grew by a very pleasing 29%.

Prakesh Desai, Group CEO: "We need to view these results against the backdrop of lower levels of business confidence, rising interest rates, and softer advertising revenues."

Johncom reports strong growth

Also: Nu Metro Interactive has signed two publishers, Eidos and Sega, for interactive game representation in South Africa, and currently has a 10% share of the gaming market.

Johncom Name Removed From Building

At 4 Biermann Avenue, the home of the countries largest newspaper, the Sunday Times, and the HQ of Johhncom, workers were seen last night removing the Johncom nomenclature off the side of the building.

One set of signage remains, an arc that wraps around the second floor balcony which is where the Sunday Times itself is originated.

It makes sense, with the Presidential Race about to go into full swing, that a major influencer of public opinion be itself influenced - if possible - by the major political party of the day. The question is, should such a powerful newspaper be allowed to be become fundamentally biased?

ALERT: Mvela already taken control at Johncom?

There were strong rumours in the market late yesterday [Thursday] that Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda group has quietly bought control of Johncom, owners of the Sunday Times, Sowetan and half of Business Day and the Financial Mail. An announcement may be made today.
Business Day understands that Mvela bought the stake in Johncom held by asset manager Allan Gray.

From Business Day and Sowetan Online:
By Peter Bruce

The transaction may have taken place late last week, just after Mvela published a cautionary notice. There is no indication how much was paid for the stake, but Allan Gray held about 30% of Johncom. Abdul David of Allan Gray described the reports as “speculation”.

Citibank recently valued that portion of Johncom which would remain, should management go ahead with plans to dispose of the Johncom stake in M-Net and hive off the stake in Caxton, at R6bn. That would imply Mvela paid about R2bn for a “forward stake” in what will be known as Opco or Avusa.

The new speculation arises out of a surprise announcement at the weekend by Johncom that it had ended talks with potential black investor groups. Johncom is still not viewed as a fully black-empowered company, and the need to become one had been driving the talks.

But Johncom withdrew a cautionary notice last week, just as Mvela was issuing one of its own.
Johncom is trying to sell its 38% stake in M-Net back to Naspers and to leave its 38% holding in Caxton, one of the country’s largest printers, in a listed shell of its own.

Terry Moolman, Caxton’s founder and owner, has taken the M-Net deal to the competition authorities.

It was accepted originally that front-running empowerment groups in the race to control Johncom were Mvela and Cyril Ramaphosa’s Shanduka group, but it may now be the case that Sexwale has done the deal on his own. It also seems clear that, by dealing directly with Allan Gray, Mvela will have avoided the many complications that could have arisen in dealing directly with Johncom management.
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NVDL: And I had speculated earlier that Telkom would buy a stake, well, the new Telkom, Telkom Media. I guess they are still shedding their fixed line operations, and so in a sense it was a question of readiness and eligibility.