Iroko TV to List on London Stock Exchange (LSE) Next Year
Nigeria’s leading film-streaming service company, Iroko TV, is planning to list on the London Stock Exchange within the next 12 months, according to the company’s CEO, Jason Njoku.
Iroko TV plans to raise between $20 million and $30 million, an amount that would put the company’s valuation between $80 million and $100 million.
The CEO, who holds a 18 percent stake in the company, said talks with brokers will commence in the coming weeks.
Iroko TV has the largest online catalogue of Nollywood films and has been redefined to target Nigerians and their friends in the diaspora.
Njoku said “The costs of pursuing Africa growth is what was really resized dramatically. We were so focused on defending Africa and basically ended up doing nothing. Zero marketing or anything to drive that.”
“We pulled back to focus on where our economics actually makes sense. Our international business organically grew double-digit in 2020 and we expect it to continue this way for the foreseeable future.”
Speaking on the expected listing, Njoku said “We don’t need more. To be honest, $10 million to $15 million will be for corporate development; the rest will be secondaries for shareholders. As a private company, IROKO’s valuation was never priced above $70 million so anything in our target range wouldn’t be a down round at all,” he said.
“Especially if you consider in that time we exited ROK for close to the total amount of capital we raised for IROKO; we have returned $11 million to early investors and shareholders already. We still have material capital left from the ROK-Canal+ acquisition coming in every six months until 2023.”
