Dimension Data Holdings plc (Dimension Data), a leading global technology company, provides solutions and services that optimise and manage the performance of IT infrastructure to enable businesses to build competitive advantages.

The company operates in more than 30 countries around the world, with over 8 500 employees.

In 2000, Dimension Data moved its primary listing to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), with a secondary listing on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE). In December 2002, VenFin subscribed to a US$100 million seven-year convertible bond issued by Dimension Data.

OVERVIEW OF THE PERIOD TO 31 MARCH 2004

Performance across the group improved and during the six months to 31 March 2004, Dimension Data returned to profitability after two loss-making reporting periods. Good revenue growth was accomplished as a result of increased demand, a greater external focus, improved market share and a strong performance by Internet Solutions. Revenues for the 30 September 2003 financial year amounted to $2.1 billion.

In the underperforming regions of the US, Germany, France and South Africa, business returned to profitability. Non-performing assets were sold or realigned and margins improved. Close monitoring of the cost base continues and productivity per employee has increased.

In the US, the sales proposition and solutions offerings were improved and the company focused on gaining market share. Proxicom, the US-based web design and internet consulting company, has been sold and the remaining business is now profitable.

The recovery continued in Asia, where the improved performance was driven by significant cost savings and disposing non-core businesses. In the increasing demand environment overall profitability continued to improve, although China and Korea still require attention.

In South Africa the business strategy was reviewed and changes made in key positions, resulting in a strong turnaround to profitability. In March 2004 the role of chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) was split, with Brett Dawson, who has been the group’s chief operating officer since October 2002, taking over as CEO from Jeremy Ord. Malcolm Rutherford resigned as chief financial officer and was succeeded by David Sherriffs, who has been with the group since 1997 in various financial positions in Europe and South Africa.

Andile Ngcaba, who was appointed chairman designate of Dimension Data’s African operations, will lead a black economic empowerment consortium to acquire a 25.01% equity stake in the South African business. This transaction should unlock opportunities, both in South Africa and the rest of Africa.

THE FUTURE

While the competitive environment remains tough, an improved demand for IT services, together with a greater external focus and better execution, should continue to drive Dimension Data’s performance in the second half of the year.

As a dominant player in the South African stolen vehicle recovery industry, Tracker Investment Holdings (Proprietary) Limited (Tracker) has a strong monthly subscription-based income stream. Its core business is the sale and installation of vehicle tracking systems and the tracking and recovery of stolen vehicles.

Tracker’s contract partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS), in terms of which Tracker’s technology is used to track and recover stolen vehicles throughout South Africa, has proved highly successful. By empowering the SAPS to arrest and successfully prosecute criminals, it also contributes to reducing the high levels of vehicle crime. Tracker also employs its own tracking teams throughout the country.

Since Tracker’s inception, 20 600 stolen vehicles have been recovered, 4 600 criminals arrested and 210 chop shops and vehicle theft syndicates exposed through the usage of Tracker technology.

OVERVIEW OF THE YEAR TO 30 JUNE 2004

During the year to 30 June 2004, Tracker installed more than 87 000 new systems (36% up from the previous year), thereby increasing its subscriber base to 275 000 vehicles. Tracker extended its product range by launching Tracker Locate, a combined web-based location and tracking system which has been very well received by the market.

Based on Tracker’s statistics, vehicle theft has declined slightly. During the year under review, 5 280 Tracker-equipped vehicles were stolen, an increase of only 3% from the previous year, in spite of a 27% increase in subscribers.

36.8% interest

GenuOne Incorporated (GenuOne) is a leading provider of security technologies and solutions that enable companies to protect their products and value chain from counterfeiting, grey-market diversion, warranty fraud and intellectual property theft in the physical world and on the internet. Every implementation consists of a flexible combination of web and network-based software modules, a variety of marking platforms and professional services.

With its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, GenuOne serves a global client base that includes corporations in the pharmaceutical, high tech, luxury goods, tobacco and apparel industries as well as the US Federal Government. At the end of 2003 the company reorganised its operations into two profit centres: Brand Security and Supply Chain Tracking.

BRAND SECURITY

GenuOne’s SourceGuard product is an anti-counterfeiting system that includes marking technologies, supply chain software and integration services. GenuOne’s advanced product marking solutions include molecularly and optically modified inks, infrared and ultraviolet photo-luminescent dyes, spot metallisation, and authentic holograms. GenuOne combines these technologies with its online software that controls the procurement and order fulfilment of security products between brand owner, its remote factories and GenuOne.

On the internet GenuOne utilises its GenuNet software to enable companies to identify and respond to unauthorised online activity, thereby limiting their vulnerability to intellectual property theft, product counterfeiting, grey-market diversion and brand abuse.

The most recent GenuNet 3.0 release includes its eBay Monitoring module which streamlines the identification of infringing listings, tracking of suspicious sellers, and the enforcement of brand holders’ property rights by shutting down the auctioning of stolen and fake items. Other GenuNet modules authenticate reseller channel compliance, extracting key product information (including pricing) for the identification of potential counterfeit and grey-market goods, and profile seller activity for indications of suspicious physical supply sourcing.

SUPPLY CHAIN TRACKING

TraceGuard is a track and trace system with a transaction platform fast enough to process the vast quantity of data required to control products as they get marked, packed, shipped and serviced. The system allows the client to track the physical location of items and provides a history of locations and packaging configuration.

With its TraceGuard product GenuOne is ideally positioned to capitalise on the recent explosion of the radio frequency identification (RFID) industry, and a division focusing exclusively on supply chain tracking has been established. Several recent events have added further momentum to RFID technology: The European Union already requires RFID technology for food and beverage companies, and by 2005 it will also be required by US retail giant WalMart and the US Department of Defence.

OVERVIEW OF THE PERIOD TO 30 JUNE 2004

Although January and February 2004 were the strongest sales months in the company’s history, the company has underperformed against budget, mainly due to lower gross margins. The company currently has 20 GenuNet,

11 SourceGuard and seven TraceGuard clients. The company also developed a strong joint RFID solution offering with a major industry player, based on the TraceGuard architecture that is currently deployed among a small number of clients.

THE FUTURE

The brand security division is expected to remain the main revenue contributor over the next year. Management expects to engage a number of clients in RFID assessment projects (professional services work) as well as a number of proof of concept assignments (pilot projects). Revenue is budgeted to grow by more than 90% for the year ending December 2004.

In May 2004, VenFin increased its interest in Idion Technology Holdings Limited (Idion), a technology investment holding company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa, from 6.0% to approximately 35.0%. Vision Solutions Incorporated (Vision) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Idion.

Through Vision, Idion provides solutions that assure the high availability of a company’s applications and data. Its solutions ensure consistent, predictable access to data and applications across multiple platforms (OS400, Linux and Windows). Vision Solutions’ products include Vision Suite® , Symbiator® , VisualizeTM and Orion® .

Vision Solutions was established in 1990 and its headquarters is in Irvine, California. It has sales and marketing offices in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific markets. With more than 1 850 clients and 10 000 licences in 70 countries, Vision has access to a geographically diversified market.

The company is an IBM Premier Business Partner, an IBM High Availability Business Partner, and a leading managed availability vendor for the IBM eServer iSeries (AS/400), a mid-range of servers that run on the OS/400 IBM proprietary operating system.

Vision provides highly scalable data integration, disaster recovery, high availability, clustering and continuous availability solutions in environments where servers need to ensure an uninterrupted service in the event of both planned and unplanned downtime.

In addition to its technology, Vision provides its global market with professional services, support and training. It offers a world-class CustomerCare programme and has a global network of approximately 140 partners. Vision also maintains strategic alliances with leading application and database companies, including IBM, Misys, IBS, Intentia, Microsoft and Oracle.

VenFin believes it can play an active role in enhancing the value of Vision by providing strategic input, necessary resources and introductions to sister companies and associates within the broader VenFin group.

OVERVIEW OF THE PERIOD TO 30 JUNE 2004

In late 2003, Vision expanded its solutions offerings to the multi-platform arena with the successful launch of the Orion solution set. As the industry’s first multi-platform information availability solution, Orion is set to become Vision’s flagship product. Orion supports the range of availability solutions from disaster recovery through server and application fail-over for IBM iSeries, Microsoft Windows 2000 and 2003 and the Linux Redhat and SuSE operating systems as well as data integration and transformation to and from various disparate databases (including Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, DB2/400 and UDB), all from a common interface.

Vision focused its marketing efforts for Orion on its IBM iSeries installed base and saw initial traction of solution adoption in the first months following the release. This initial success was primarily the result of investments in channel training, sustaining engineering, education and CustomerCare during 2002 and 2003. By the end of 2003, Vision had trained its entire sales force, a significant number of channel partners and a number of customers.

Idion focused all its efforts during 2003 on Vision and was rewarded with another record year with regard to dollar revenues and cash generation as well as continued profitability. Investments over the past 24 months in Vision’s infrastructure, indirect sales distribution channel, human capital and new product initiatives, in particular Orion, and the group’s selected focus on multi-platform managed availability, continued to yield favourable results.

Idion reported positive headline earnings for the six months to June 2004. The cash position remains strong at $10.2 million, compared to $10.4 million at the 31 December 2003 year-end.

THE FUTURE

While Vision was encouraged by its 2004 financial results, the group believes that economic conditions are likely to remain challenging in 2004. However, the company is well positioned to take advantage of any improvement in the economic climate and in IT spending. Vision remains confident that the rate of acceptance of Orion will continue to increase in 2004, especially later in the year.

The group has positioned itself favourably for future growth, and management is confident that the significant progress of the past two years will continue.

VenFin has a 11.1% interest in FrontRange Limited (FrontRange), a technology investment holding company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa. Its core asset is its 100% stake in US-based FrontRange Solutions Incorporated. With its headquarters in Pleasanton, California, the group has direct operations in eight countries and partners in a further 39 countries.

FrontRange Solutions develops customer relationship management software solutions that are used by more than 130 000 companies and 1.7 million users worldwide to manage a wide variety of business relationships and to provide exceptional service. Product families include GoldMine, for business relationship management, team-based contact management and sales forces automation solutions; and HEAT, for complete service management, including help desk, knowledge, asset and service level management.

FrontRange Solutions products are designed for small to medium-sized enterprises and distribution organisations. Clients, representing 44% of the Fortune 500 and 76% of the FTSE 100, include divisions of Coca-Cola, Shell Oil, Prudential Securities, Électricité de France, Mack Trucks, Blue Cross, Campbell Soup, Avaya, Bertelsmann Services, Bechtel Corp, Bank of America, BMW and Turner News Network.

OVERVIEW OF THE PERIOD TO 30 JUNE 2004

Whilst total revenue declined 4.4% compared with the prior year, FrontRange achieved sequential revenue growth from Q1 to Q4. Gross and operating profit margins improved. FrontRange generated $8.6 million cash compared with $6 million in 2003, a 42% improvement.

FrontRange ended the year with $21.3 million in cash compared with $14.7 million in the prior year. Deferred revenue also improved from $13.7 million to $14.5 million.

During the year to 30 June 2004, FrontRange embarked on several major initiatives. These included hiring a stronger and more experienced management team and moving its product development centre from Colorado Springs to Silicon Valley.

The company also refocused its product innovation strategy to deliver products with complementary modules to existing clients. It also broadened its technology platform to focus on new growth markets, and enhanced existing products to provide adjacent market functionality.

THE FUTURE

FrontRange strives to drive profitable revenue growth by focusing on speed of execution, with a product strategy that will offer clients industry-leading products and a roadmap for the future. Products will continue to be marketed primarily through channel partners, with a major accounts sales force providing significant value-added products and services.

Intervid operates in Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Middle East as a provider of integrated solutions in the electronic security industry. Intervid addresses client needs in this specialist industry through the use of systems that typically comprise video surveillance, access control, monitoring and electronic article surveillance.

OVERVIEW OF THE YEAR TO 30 JUNE 2004

Since VenFin’s more direct involvement, Intervid has been engaged in a turnaround programme, which was starting to yield the required results when the interim figures to 31 December 2003 were announced. However, since then Intervid’s progress has been set back by a variety of shareholder challenges.

VenFin continued to play an active role in supporting Intervid during this crisis and acquired the shares owned by the major shareholder. Its shareholding increased to 64.9% and a mandatory offer had to be made to all shareholders. This was accepted and Intervid is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of VenFin.

In the meantime, Intervid focuses on its two major geographic markets: Africa and the United Kingdom. Due to continued losses and cash burn in the North American business, Intervid sold the business to the Intervid North America management team and retained the option to acquire a shareholding at a later stage.

Intervid Africa suffered most from the negative publicity arising from the boardroom struggles. Customer retention is now a priority for the business.

Intervid UK, which trades as ID Technology, made good progress, while Intervid Australia and Intervid Middle East are on track to become profitable.

Intervid Technologies was rebranded Cathexis Technologies and continues to develop sophisticated visual technology.

THE FUTURE

Intervid delisted on 24 August 2004, and this will make further robust restructuring possible.

CommsCo operates as a service provider who facilitates the reduction of information and communication technology (ICT) costs. The company gives its clients a competitive advantage by leveraging shared capacity, eliminating non-value-adding costs, decreasing risk and improving efficiency and security – thus ensuring an appropriate cost-benefit relationship.

CommsCo’s services are primarily in the field of business process improvement through managed ICT outsourcing. This includes business process improvement tools and the complete spectrum of converging ICT technologies in business: infrastructure and enterprise applications along with mobile and fixed-line communications.

In collaboration with its business partners, CommsCo focuses on the small and medium business (SMB) and public sectors. Global partners ensure that CommsCo has a competitive edge in terms of pricing benefits, standardisation of services, economies of scale and world-class execution. Regional partners, part of the company’s global distribution channels, provide certain pre-sales support, delivery and after-sales support services.

OVERVIEW OF THE YEAR TO 31 MARCH 2004

CommsCo grew its client base and annuity revenues substantially during the year to 31 March 2004. A highlight at year-end was the subscription for 50% of the share capital of CommsCo South Africa by the empowerment company Circle Capital Ventures, founded and headed by Hlumelo Biko.

THE FUTURE

CommsCo’s growth strategy for the next two to three years remains profitable organic growth, based on its specialist industry know-how and supported by selective acquisitions of pockets of excellence.

With its black economic empowerment (BEE) profile, the South African company is now ideally positioned for increased activity in the private-public partnership (PPP) arena with regard to grassroots transformation and empowerment initiatives at national, regional and local government level. CommsCo will use its successes in South Africa to extend its global reach into Africa.

49.0% interest

FRS Financial Reporting Solutions (Proprietary) Limited (FRS) offers its clients unique solutions in the fields of financial reporting automation and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) compliance. FRS is able to provide a comprehensive and efficient service to companies wishing to resolve the issues of International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) compliance. It also offers substantial productivity enhancements for compiling financial reports.

CORPORATE REPORTING

Overview of the year to 30 June 2004 and the future
FRS’s knowledge and understanding of the IASB’s evolving standards enable its clients to fulfil these requirements. The initial consultative process paves the way for the introduction of technology tools to automate its clients’ production of financial reports in accordance with IFRS.

The FRS client base boasts an increasing number of listed South African blue-chip companies, and its channel partners are actively canvassing for global business. As the global commercial market edges closer to IFRS compliance and convergence over the next five years, FRS is ideally positioned to exploit this opportunity.

RETIREMENT FUND INDUSTRY

Overview of the year to 30 June 2004 and the future
During the year to 30 June 2004, FRS further cemented its position as the first choice in the market for automation tools for the retirement fund industry reporting, and FRS achieved a world first in the field of digital reporting and submission to the Financial Services Board (FSB).

With an increasing number of large administrators in South Africa implementing Virtual CA, it is estimated that this FRS automation tool for the retirement fund industry will be used to produce almost 50% of the South African industry’s financial statements in the next year. With more fund administrators becoming aware of the need to provide better quality financial information to trustees in a cost-effective way, FRS is able to provide the required technology.

FRS achieved a world first in the field of digital reporting and submission with a project which enabled the South African FSB to receive administrator financial reports in a marked-up format utilising extensible business reporting language (XBRL). This project was completed in the year to 30 June 2004 in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Alexander Forbes and the FSB.

Fundamo (Proprietary) Limited (Fundamo) is a supplier of enterprise software for mobile payment and mobile banking solutions. Its clients are banks, payment service providers and cellular operators.

With Fundamo technology and a cellphone, subscribers can interact with their bank in the same way as with an ATM. In addition to standard transfer and enquiry transactions, more advanced payment transactions than those at ATMs are possible, i.e. real-time person-to-person payments, payment authorisation, as well as the purchase and delivery of electronic tokens. The technology integrates with credit card authorisation switches, ATM switches and other clearance mechanisms. Debit and related cards can also be issued and managed.

OVERVIEW OF THE PERIOD TO 30 JUNE 2004

The market for mobile payment and banking solutions grew at a slow pace. Despite these difficult market conditions, Fundamo’s revenue increased by more than 60% from a low base.

Fundamo’s software is now used in six countries: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya. The distribution network has been extended and resellers were contracted and trained in seven countries. A comprehensive distribution agreement was concluded with Gemplus, a leading global smartcard supplier. A notable customer win for the year was Standard Bank, who is currently implementing Fundamo’s Extender product.

THE FUTURE

With the anticipated growth in market demand for mobile payment banking solutions and the limited number of credible competitors globally, Fundamo is exploring opportunities for accelerated growth.