Staff at the South African Press Association was surprised last night by a press statement issued by Sekunjalo Investment Holdings in which it announced it was making a bid for the 75-year-old news agency. Chairman Dr Iqbal Survé vowed to invest R50 million into Sapa, should its board “look favourably” on its bid. Glenda Nevill reports.
A Sekunjalo consortium owns Independent Media, formerly Independent News and Media SA, one of the remaining members of Sapa after the Times Media Group and Caxton pulled out. Independent Media earlier gave notice it would resign its membership in November.
Now it is “struggling to fulfil its mandate to service the South African press, says Sekunjalo chairman, Survé, adding that its survival was in “jeopardy”.
“When we bid for Independent, the strategy was to grow the business’s footprint across the African continent, both through organic growth and strategic acquisitions,” Survé said in a statement.
“Sekunjalo already has substantial investments on the continent, in sectors such as technology, consumer industries, and health services. We intend to take Sapa into territory we understand very well, and intend to make it part of the wider African growth story. Apart from continuing the Sapa traditions of quality local content, the plan will be to expand the operation to become a major provider of content and other news services covering Africa,” Survé said.
Survé said Sekunjalo Investment Holdings would work with the Sekunjalo Private Equity fund to form a new enterprise to pursue the bid. He said it would “invite other media enterprises and all interested players in the media space to join in the establishment of a modern multi-platform, continental news syndication service”.
The board of Sapa is currently looking into a bid by Gallo Images to take over the agency. Former chairman of the board, Tim du Plessis, who resigned recently as he no longer works for Media24, said earlier if Sapa didn’t find a new home, it would have to close, something they (the board) desperately wants to avoid. He said members who resigned immediately subscribed to the agency, demonstrating there was a “role and a place” for Sapa, albeit in a different form of business with a different way of operating.
“Sekunjalo already has substantial investments on the continent, in sectors such as technology, consumer industries, and health services. We intend to take Sapa into territory we understand very well, and intend to make it part of the wider African growth story. Apart from continuing the Sapa traditions of quality local content, the plan will be to expand the operation to become a major provider of content and other news services covering Africa,” Survé said.
Survé believes a new African media syndication service that will expand the current role of Sapa is the answer. He said Independent Media had given notice of its intent to withdraw as “SAPA’s value to any single media entity is greatly reduced without the participation of the whole”. He said Agence France Presse (AFP) had also given a similar notice of withdrawal, “which will leave the agency without a reliable provider of content from across the African continent”. Survé said he already had “advanced plans” for an Africa-wide syndication service, created as part of a growth strategy for Independent.
He said the African continent “cannot fully take its place among the global community of nations without first telling its own story, both to itself and to the rest of the world”.
This meant an expanded Sapa, acting as a continental provider of content to Africa and the rest of the world, would “allow us to do that”.
The Media Online tried for comment by the remaining Sapa board members, but hadn’t received answers at the time of posting
