Former JSE dot-com darling Dimension Data says goodbye

Dimension Data, one of South Africa’s most successful information technology companies, will be renamed ‘NTT Data’ and cease to exist on 1 April 2024.

Dimension Data was founded in 1983 by Keith McLachlan, Werner Sievers, Jeremy Ord, Peter Neale, and Kevin Hamilton.

It was listed on the JSE on 15 July 1987 at a price of R1.50 a share, through which it raised R7.5 million.

It expanded internationally, which included launching in Botswana in 1993 and the Asia Pacific region from 1995 to 1997.

It acquired numerous companies in the ICT sector, including Australian ComTech and South African Internet Solutions, The Merchants Group, and Datacraft.

Between 1998 and 2000, it expanded in the Northern Hemisphere by investing in companies in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In July 2000, Dimension Data was listed on the London Stock Exchange, through which it raised $1.25 billion in the process. By 2003, the company’s revenue soared to $2 billion.

Its strong growth drew the attention of many international IT powerhouses, including Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).

In July 2010, NTT bought Dimension Data for £2.1 billion, and it was delisted from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange.

It continued to trade under the Dimension Data brand and became the official technology partner of the Tour de France.

In 2018, NTT announced that Dimension Data, NTT Communications, NTT Data, NTT Security, and NTTi3 would be transferred to NTT and “align together under its new leadership”.

Despite this structural change at NTT, Dimension Data continued to operate as a separate company through its own brand.

However, last week, NTT Group CEO Alan Turnley-Jones revealed that Dimension Data will be renamed NTT Data from 1 April 2024.

MyBroadband reported that the name change forms part of the merger of NTT and NTT Data into a single entity, known as NTT Data, headed by current CEO Abhijit Dubey.

The latter’s branding will gradually replace Dimension Data’s at its offices over the next few months.