The shares of Nigeria’s biggest telecoms operator, MTN, can be publicly traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) from today May 16, the company announced.
In a statement, MTN said it has received approval to list on the Premium Board of the NSE and it will be done by way of an introductory listing.
In simpler terms, there will not be an additional public sale of shares but the shares of existing MTN Nigeria shareholders will be listed. What this means is that all MTN Nigeria shareholders will be free to trade their shares on the NSE.
Ferdi Moolman, chief executive officer of MTN Nigeria said “It gives me great pleasure to confirm that the official listing via introduction of MTN’s shares on the NSE will take place on Thursday May 16.”
“We appreciate the continued support afforded us by the government, regulators and people of this great nation. In particular, I would like to thank the staff and management of MTN Nigeria who worked tirelessly to make this day possible. This is just the beginning, we still intend to pursue a future Public Offer giving more Nigerians greater access to the MTN opportunity.”
MTN Group chief financial officer CFO, Ralph Mupita said “As MTN Group we are very pleased that we are taking this first and important step towards increasing the local ownership of the company, and building the equity capital markets in Nigeria”
Despite its several run-ins with the Nigerian government, MTN Nigeria has been recording positive performance.
Recently, it announced its earnings for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 recording 13.4% growth in service revenue. This was driven by a 12.7% and 32.4% rise in voice and data revenue respectively and the addition of 2.1 million active mobile subscribers to the network.
The company announced Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) of N150.4 billion and expanded EBITDA margins to 53.3% (44.2%, on an IAS 17 basis) “due to growth in revenue and effective cost management.”
