Month: November 2021
MTN Group is pleased to announce that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an offer for sale of up to 575 million ordinary shares in MTN Nigeria, by way of a bookbuild to qualified investors (Institutional Offer) and a fixed price to retail investors (Retail Offer).
The Institutional Offer opens on 23 November 2021 and closes at 15.00 SAST on 26 November 2021, after which a fixed price will be determined for the Retail Offer. The Retail Offer is proposed to open after the Institutional Offer, and an announcement will be published in this regard once clearance is obtained from the SEC.
“MTN Group is pleased with the launch of this public offer. This is the first step in a series of offers over the near to medium-term for MTN Group to sell-down a total of up to 14% shareholding in MTN Nigeria. This should result in greater ownership by Nigerian institutional and retail shareholders, and increased liquidity of the share on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.” said Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita.
MTN Group currently holds 78.8% shareholding in MTN Nigeria.
MTN Group today announces the Group’s exit from our operation in Yemen in a transaction that furthers the delivery of our Ambition 2025 strategy and is in line with our intention – first announced in August 2020 – to exit the Middle East.
Effective 17 November 2021, MTN Group transferred our majority shareholding in MTN Yemen to Emerald International Investment LCC. Emerald is a subsidiary of Zubair Investment Center LLC, an affiliate of Zubair Corporation LLC, which is the minority shareholder in MTN Yemen.
“The decision to exit Yemen was driven by a need to simplify the portfolio and focus our limited resources on executing a pan-African strategy,” said MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita.
“We would like to thank the 719 employees of MTN Yemen for their commitment over the years, and the 4.7 million subscribers of MTN Yemen for their custom and trust in the brand. We wish Emerald well in the next phase of development of this business as they work with the team that served MTN well over the years.”
In August 2020, MTN Group announced plans to focus on our pan-African strategy and exit the Middle East over the medium term, thereby simplifying our portfolio and reducing risk. In the first half of 2021, MTN Yemen contributed 0.3% to MTN Group EBITDA. MTN Group held 82.8% of the shares in MTN Yemen, whose operating licence for its 2G network is due for renewal at the end of 2021.
MTN Mobile Money and our ayoba superapp are making doing business easier for entrepreneurs everywhere, supporting the development of their enterprises and the growth of economies in Africa.
Take Daniela Fosuhene, a shop owner in Anloga in Kumasi, Ghana, some 250km northwest of Accra. She uses MoMo – tried and trusted in Ghana since 2011 – to manage her small retail business ‘Mega Dan Ventures’ and to make payments to her suppliers.
To enable her to explore other business opportunities she recently took a business loan with MoMo-Advance. She also wanted to reduce her risks, so she used MTN’s aYo insurance offering to insure herself.
“MoMo is such a fantastic service which I totally depend on for almost everything I do,” says Daniela. “Most importantly, it has given me a livelihood. It is easy to use, convenient, reliable and safe. Indeed, I can confidently call MoMo a lifesaver.”
Daniela uses MoMo to regularly send money to her children and other relatives. She also often shares ‘wisewords’ (a local ayoba content channel) with them.
Daniela is the leader of an ayoba group chat on which she and other small shop owners coordinate bulk purchases of products, so that they can share in the savings that buying this way affords.
Over the weekends, Daniela enjoys listening to one of ayoba’s church channels. When she is looking for quality entertainment, she also enjoys watching live events on ayoba.
At the end of September 2021, MTN Ghana had 10.6 million active MoMo users and 1.4 million ayoba subscriptions.
MTN Group is today pleased to announce a solid set of third quarter operating results, plans for a public offer of shares in MTN Nigeria, progress in finalising a passive infrastructure deal for MTN South Africa as well as in our work to create shared value across our 20 markets, with ESG at the core.
For the quarter to end-September 2021, the Group also reduced debt and holding company leverage, recorded strong financial results in line with medium-term guidance and advanced the delivery of our Ambition 2025 strategy.
“It’s been a busy quarter, and I’m particularly pleased with the sustained operational momentum across our businesses,” said MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita.
“Material progress was made in accelerating the deleveraging of the holding company balance sheet, and our asset realisation programme and portfolio optimisation priorities are progressing well. The process of structurally separating our fintech and fibre assets remains on track.”
He added that the debt reduction led to S&P upgrading MTN’s standalone credit rating to investment grade – a level last achieved five years’ ago.
At period-end, the group subscriber base was 272m.
Driven by continued strong growth momentum in major markets Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, MTN Group’s service revenue ramped up 19.1% to R125 billion in the first nine months of the year. Data and fintech service revenue increased by 34.5% and 35.0% respectively. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 24.1%, with margins expanding 2.1 percentage points to 45.0% on a constancy-currency basis.
We advanced financial inclusion, reaching 51 million Mobile Money customers in 16 markets, processing almost 20 000 transactions a minute, with the value of transactions up 67.2% year-on-year to US$175.5bn.
As part of our asset realisation programme, the listing of IHS was an important milestone, creating a liquidity platform for the future to deleverage further. Our further localisation in Uganda with the intention to sell 20% of the Group’s holding in MTN Uganda is in progress.
We are also announcing a public offer of just under 3% of shares in MTN Nigeria as part of the statement of intent communicated previously to further localise 14% of the Group’s holding in MTN Nigeria over the medium term. MTN South Africa is making good progress with a sale and leaseback of its towers.
Aligned to our commitment to achieve net zero by 2040, we started working with the Science-Based Targets initiative to reduce our emissions in line with climate science. In joining Business Ambition for 1.5°C, MTN became part of the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign. In recognition of the strides made in governance practices, our MSCI ESG rating was upgraded to ‘A’ from a rating of ‘BBB’.
Looking ahead, Mupita was encouraged that the number of new COVID-19 cases across Africa had started to slow, but said the pandemic continued to impact lives and livelihoods and demand for mobile services: “It highlights the vital importance of telecommunications as people rely on these services for information and to work, learn and entertain from home. We as MTN are well positioned to deliver and will invest in line with our capital allocation framework to capture these opportunities.”