MTN to List 20bn Shares at N90 on May 16th

• MTN to List 20bn Shares at N90 on May 16th

MTN Nigeria was approved by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday to list its shares on the nation’s stock market.

An anonymous source at the NSE, who do not want to be mentioned, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the application of the telecommunication giant was approved on Tuesday.

The source said the company is expected to list a total of 20,354,513,050 shares at N90 per share on Thursday, May 16.

MTN Nigeria shares, once listed at N90 a share, would be the second largest company on the Nigerian stock market after Dangote Cement, with a market value of N1.83 trillion.

The telecom company said in its quarterly update released last week that it plans to raise around N200 billion in commercial papers later this year.

Adekunle Awobodu, the Chief Financial Officer, MTN Nigeria, told Bloomberg that the fund would enable the firm to finance capital expenditure needed to increase its reach and efficiency in Nigeria.

MTN is “currently arranging” for another N200bn, Awobodu said.

In the first quarter report released last week, the company’s revenue rose by 13.2 percent year-on-year to N282.0 billion, largely driven by voice, data, financial technology and digital revenues, at a contribution of 74.9 percent, 16.6 percent, 2.9 percent, and 1 percent, respectively. Other sources contributed 4.5 percent.

The MTN Group President and CEO, Rob Shutter, had said the company hopes to bolster the network with addition 47 million new subscribers by 2023 with a mobile penetration of 91.8 percent in Nigeria.

This was after announcing 2.1 million new subscribers for the first quarter of 2019.

Shuter said, “The successful listing of our e-commerce joint venture, Jumia, provides a market value for our 18.9 percent investment and we completed the conversion of MTN Nigeria to a public company ahead of the listing by introduction on the Nigerian Stock Exchange anticipated for May 2019.

“We remain committed to achieving our medium-term targets through delivering against all elements of our BRIGHT strategy and in particular executing our plans to access our growth curves.”