JOHANNESBURG, Nov 18 (Reuters) – South Africa’s Telkom has suspended plans to sell part of its fibre business, CEO Serame Taukobong said on Monday, as the fixed broadband service helped drive the company’s half-year income.

Shares in Telkom, majority-owned by the government, were up 5.48% at 1327 GMT, after it reported that half-year adjusted headline earnings per share grew by 57.5%.

This was after excluding 160 million rand ($8.85 million) restructuring costs and a 618 million rand cost of switching its Telkom Retirement Fund from a defined benefit to a defined contribution funding arrangement.

Telkom – which owns a big chunk of the fast growing home and business fibre market – last year wanted to list the business separately or sell a minority stake in it to unlock more value but now wants to keep it.

“We have suspended any discussions or investigations into partnerships for Openserve,” Taukobong said during a results call. “We stayed very firm on our decisions as an infrastructure company and I think you’re seeing the results there.”

He added that Openserve would remain a core and critical part of the group’s strategy.

Telkom has been investing in migrating customers away from copper-based technology to faster and “next-generation network” (NGN) offerings such as fibre and long-term evolution – a 4G wireless standard – as customers seek faster internet services for richer content.

NGN revenue now contributes 80.9% to operating revenue, up from 74.4% in the previous period, offsetting the impact of the group’s decision to ditch legacy services.

($1 = 18.1434 rand)

(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Nelson Banya and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)