For the last two years Liquid Telecom has been on a journey to become an industry leader in both mobile networks and open access.
That journey continues but now under a different name.
The firm has announced its strategic re-positioning as Liquid Intelligent Technologies, or if you favour brevity, LIT.
“As we have transitioned our business in the last two years, we have added new products and solutions in addition to our connectivity offering. As such, the company needs to develop people and improve organisational maturity that will enable us to operate in our intelligent technology business to generate immediate and sustainable value to our current and future shareholders and exceed our customer expectations to be more competitive in our industry,” LIT said in a statement on Tuesday.
While the name change is notable LIT also says that it “has developed a new operating model to address its technological and structural needs for growth”.
That sounds rather nefarious and from what we’ve seen from other reports, it is.
A report from MyBroadband reveals that LIT employees were sent Section 189 notices informing them of planned job cuts ahead of this statement being released.
Consultations with employees are reportedly set to begin this week and as many as a third of LIT employees many lose their jobs.
In other LIT news, Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa is looking to sell 20 to 34 percent of LIT. The billionaire reportedly needs the money to repay a loan of $375 million according to Bloomberg.
The situation becomes sticky however when one learns that the loan was backed by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) which manages funds on behalf of local organisations including government.
The PIC has demanded that Masiyiwa resolve the matter by the end of August.
As for LIT’s retrenchments, those may take place after consultations which wrap up on 4th October with the date for retrenchments set for 4th November.
