Huge purchase approved

South African AltX-listed telecommunications company Huge Group has said that the Competition Commission has officially approved its purchase of least-cost router CentraCell.

"This was the last outstanding item for completion of the CentraCell purchase," it said.

The R80m transaction was first announced in August 2007, almost a week after Huge listed on the AltX exchange.

It planned to pay R58.4m in cash, and the remainder through the issue of shares.

Delighted

"We are delighted to be able to finally put this transaction to bed. The approval took far longer than we expected. Consequently, we are more than eager to get to grips with extracting the expected synergies," said Huge Group's finance director James Herbst.

CEO Anton Potgieter says CentraCell will be merged into subsidiary Huge Telecom, which used to be called TelePassport prior to the group's listing.

"After the merger, Huge Telecom - which provides complete managed telecommunications services to corporate clients in South Africa - will boast monthly annuity revenues of over R47m," added Potgieter.

The group is currently also waiting for Competition Commission approval for its R511.5m acquisition of iTalk Cellular, which was announced in December 2007.