David Montgomery's reinvention as an internet entrepreneur moved closer yesterday when his new employer struck a deal that places it in position to become the dominant internet service provider in Africa.
African Lakes, a former colonial trading company founded in the late 19th century by some associates of the explorer David Livingstone, said it would set up a joint venture company with a South African technology firm to develop internet services across 14 countries in Africa.
Mr Montgomery, the group's recently appointed executive chairman and former Mirror boss, said that the link with Uunet SA, a subsidiary of telecoms group WorldCom, was consistent with African Lakes' strategy of moving away from its traditional business of rubber plantations and transportation towards a new focus on communications.
The deal will combine the corporate subscriber base and brand of African Lakes' Africa Online internet service provider subsidiary with Uunet's infrastructure. The venture is targeting 150,000 subscribers by the end of next year.
A mixture of fixed line will be made available because phone cables have not been laid in large parts of Africa and mobile phones are expected to become the prime way of accessing the internet in those regions. Satellite systems will also be used to transmit information to particularly remote areas. Shares rose 13% to 34.5p.
Africa is seen as a potentiallly huge internet market but the roll-out of web access across a vast continent, blighted in parts by war, political unrest, famine and disease, will be difficult.
Africa Online has a presence in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Cte d'Ivoire. It intends to expand into Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique soon.
It has opened e-touch centres - effectively internet cafes - in several of its existing territories and has plans to develop country specific content sites.
Mr Montgomery's other internet interests include Yava, a project that aims to take the internet into pubs across Britain, while he recently attempted to mount a private equity backed bid for Express Newspapers. "I've always been much more interested in mediums that access a mass market rather than top end products that focus more on the middle classes," he said.
