South Africa’s third largest operator Cell C wants to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in the next three to four years after strengthening itself sufficiently for a listing, CEO Jose dos Santos told the country’s Sunday Times.

Rivals Vodacom, MTN and incumbent Telkom are already listed on the JSE. In November last year, Telkom called off talks to acquire Cell C after reportedly failing to agree on a price.

The country’s Public Investment Corporation, which has a 15 per cent stake in Vodacom and around 17 per cent in MTN, told the newspaper it may invest in Cell C if the operator decided to go ahead with a listing.

In December, distributor Blue Label Telecoms took a 35 per cent stake in Cell C with plans to inject ZAR4 billion ($262.4 million) of new capital. The deal involved Oger Telecom cutting its stake from 75 per cent to around 27 per cent.