Johannesburg - South Africa's largest fixed-line telephone company Telkom
[JSE:TKG] has appointed Jeffrey Hedberg, head of its struggling Nigerian unit, as acting group chief executive to replace Reuben September.
Hedberg is regarded as a turnaround specialist and was brought into the company to assist with struggling Nigeria's Multi Links, after he helped South Africa's smallest mobile phone operator Cell C.
September, who has led the company for the past three years, agreed to step down as CEO from July 11 and will assume a consulting role until November 1.
A 33-year-old veteran of the company, September sold off Telkom's stake in its main profit driver, mobile phone operator Vodacom Group
[JSE:VOD], last year.
He then announced a R6 billionbn plan to push Telkom into the overcrowded mobile market, a move one analyst described as "suicide".
Multi-Links is one of four mobile operators using the CDMA technology platform in a market overwhelmingly dominated by the rival GSM standard. Telkom wrote down the value of the unit by 5.2 billion rand in the financial year to end-March.
Shares of Telkom were down 0.35% at R37.53, lagging a 0.36%firmer South Africa's All-Share index