Airtel Africa Completes Minority Shareholding Buyback of Airtel Nigeria

Airtel Africa Plc. has announced the completion of the minority shareholding buyback of its biggest subsidiary in Africa, Airtel Nigeria.

This announcement was disclosed in a corporate filing posted on the website of the Nigerian Exchange Limited and signed by the group’s Company Secretary, Simon O’Hara.

“Further to the buyout offer announcement of 4 October 2021, Airtel Africa, a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with a presence in 14 countries across Africa, today announces the completion of the minority shareholding buyback of Airtel Networks Limited (‘Airtel Nigeria’), a subsidiary of Airtel Africa plc. and a leading provider of telecommunication services in Nigeria. The total consideration for the 8.22% minority shareholdings acquired under the buyback is NGN 61bn, equivalent to $147m using an exchange rate of 415.07 NGN/USD,” the statement signed by the Company’s Secretary read.

The company had in October disclosed its plan of buying back 8.27 percent minority shareholdings at an offer price of N55.81 per share to the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX. The recent development is just the actualisation of the initial disclosure.

Vanguard had similarly, in October, reported that the NGX formally Nigerian Stock Exchange, announced the cross border secondary listing of 3,758,151,504 ordinary shares of Airtel Africa Plc on Tuesday, July 9, 2019. This, Vanguard reported, added N1.36 trillion to the market capitalization of the Exchange, and further deepened the Nigerian capital market. It had also increased the visibility of Airtel Africa to investors on the continent and across the globe.

This latest development is on the other hand coming a month after Nigeria’s third most capitalised company with mobile money valued at $2.65 billion on the Africa continent got approvals-in-principle from the central bank to run a payment service bank and also operate as a super-agent in the country’s growing banking space.

Thus, with this recent buyback, Airtel Africa now holds 99.96 percent ownership of its largest subsidiary.