Community Investment Ventures Holdings Pty Ltd. (CIVH), the Remgro Limited (JSE:REM) controlled telecommunications infrastructure holding company that owns both Vumatel (Pty) Ltd. and Dark Fibre Africa (Pty) Ltd., is talking to local and international investors to raise ZAR 6 Billion in new funding, TechCentral reported. Vodacom Group Limited (JSE:VOD) has held talks to buy a significant minority stake in CIVH but it is understood that a deal with the mobile operator is not imminent, it said. Citing sources following the situation, the news portal said the parties held exclusive talks about a deal but that this exclusivity period has since lapsed.

Remgro is CIVH's largest shareholder with an effective 54.7% stake. CIVH Chairman Pieter Uys said the capital raising process was paused in April(2020) because of Covid and restarted somewhere in the second half of the year. TechCentral said that both local and international potential investors have been in discussions with CIVH and its advisors.

Three independent sources told TechCentral recently that Vodacom has held detailed talks with CIVH about a possible investment and that the telecoms group remains keen to invest, particularly given Vumatel's strong presence in the home fibre broadband market and Dark Fibre Africa's significant fibre footprint. The exact stage of those discussions is not clear at this point.