Category: Media releases
MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Fatima Laher as Group Executive: Group Legal, effective 1 October 2022. Fatima re-joins MTN from Samsung Electronics, where she held the role of Head of Africa Disputes, for the past six years.
Lele Modise, Group Chief Legal and Regulatory officer said, “Fatima is adept at providing expert strategic and innovative advice to senior leadership in the prestigious institutions she has worked for locally and internationally.”
“As Executive: Group Legal, Fatima will provide support in overseeing all legal areas and managing legal risk, supporting strategic projects and initiatives across MTN Group, as well as supporting the implementation of the Group Legal & Regulatory strategy,” concluded Modise.
Fatima is a seasoned multi-skilled Legal Executive with expertise across various disciplines, including but not limited to managing high value cross border litigation, legal risk mitigation and corporate investigations, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as commercial law.
Fatima brings more than 25 years of legal experience to MTN, having held various roles at pan-African (Bowman Gilfillan Africa Group, Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs Africa) and international law firms (Herbert Smith Freehills LLP (Dubai) and Norton Rose Fulbright LLP (Dubai). Some of her previous roles include being Partner (Director) at Bowman Gilfillan Africa Group, responsible for corporate compliance and investigations and Executive: Group Commercial Legal, Regulatory and Compliance at MTN Group.
Fatima is an Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. She holds Master of Laws, Honours in Law, and Bachelor of Arts degrees, all obtained from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
MTN Group is pleased to announce the continued recognition of its efforts to engage with stakeholders as we continue to create shared value in line with our Ambition 2025 strategy. The Group was recognised in a total of six categories at the Institutional Investor: 2022 Emerging EMEA Executive Team Awards.
The awards, which recognise the Emerging EMEA region’s best-rated Investor Relations (IR) and executive teams, are based on an independent assessment and rating of more than 17 IR performance metrics by leading global buy and sell side professionals.
Specifically, MTN Group attained second place rankings within EMEA TMT for the Best IR Program, Best Analyst/Investor Event, Best ESG, Best CEO, Best Company Board and Most Honoured Company.
The assessment was based on feedback from over 270 investment professionals and 183 financial services firms who were asked to provide ratings on metrics including CEO credibility, leadership and communication as well as the impact and productivity of roadshows, earnings calls and the IR teams’ responsiveness and knowledge of the company and sector.
MTN remains steadfast in our commitment to engaging with our stakeholders, and in this instance the investment community. The continuous feedback is critical to enhancing how the company communicates and engages with our stakeholders.
MTN Group was the only African company in the Top three of any category in EMEA TMT.
MTN Group today launched a brand campaign profiling MTN Business – the ICT leader in Africa, which aims to be a trusted partner to businesses in their digital evolution and ultimately achieve #BusinessDoneBetter across the continent.
“We understand that growing a business is hard. Business leaders are juggling many priorities and often cannot attend to them all,” said MTN Group Enterprise Business Unit Executive Tumi Chamayou. “MTN Business’s role is to assist them do the things that make an impact and support their growth, helping them get it done better.”
MTN Business provides the tools to shift small, medium and large enterprises and multinational corporations and those in the public sector to being modern, connected and digital. These include converged ICT – managed network services; cloud services; unified communications; security solutions; and Internet of Things – as well as connectivity (mobile and fixed).
Chamayou said the plan was for MTN Business to become the empowering, leading ICT expert providing value to enterprise clients. Among our customer base, we already have more than four million enterprises who are instrumental in contributing to Africa’s economic growth.
She said MTN Business also had a key role to play in realising the MTN Group’s Ambition 2025: Leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress: “Building the largest and most valuable platforms is one of Ambition 2025’s four strategic priorities. Enterprise Services is one of MTN’s five platform businesses and operates under the ‘MTN Business’ brand.”
Ambition 2025 targets MTN Group enterprise revenue of more than R30 billion by 2025. This compares to R16.6 billion in 2021. In the first six months of 2022, enterprise revenue accelerated, increasing by 26.8%* in constant currency terms to R9.9 billion. This was driven largely by MTN Business growth in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
African enterprises have a valuable role to play in addressing the continent’s most pressing challenges by providing much-needed jobs, products and services. World Bank data shows that SMEs contribute up to 60% of all employment and as much as 40% of the GDP in emerging economies. This makes them the cornerstone of most economies in Africa.
“We want to be the business enabler of choice in Africa, meeting the communication and ICT demands of business clients throughout the continent,” said Chamayou. “With a customer-centric approach to providing cutting-edge services, we are doing this by leveraging our brand and advanced network as well our strong customer base of top companies across sub-Saharan Africa.”
MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, today announces the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Dooka, Africa’s first business-to-business (B2B) marketplace to automate the sourcing process of MTN’s long tail of indirect local spending.
The partnership promises a paradigm shift in corporate procurement on the continent, bringing the ease of consumer marketplace buying to companies across Africa. Dooka will boost MTN’s local supplier development initiatives, giving local suppliers – including women-owned businesses – the opportunity to sell to other customers on the platform, while providing MTN and other businesses with transparency in pricing and greater efficiencies.
“Our new relationship with Dooka is hugely exciting and brings efficiencies to every level of the supply chain. It stands to transform the way businesses operate across Africa,” says Dirk Karl, MTN Group Executive: Global Sourcing and Supply Chain. “It fits with our strategic priority to create shared value, a key component of which is greater localisation.”
Dooka CEO Toby Sparrow says it is a chance to revolutionise the supply chain: “Together with MTN, we can demonstrate that the right tools enable corporations to create jobs and support development and growth through good procurement. Dooka represents a new way to connect buyers and sellers across every industry. We are levelling the playing field so businesses large and small across Africa can transact as easily as if shopping at home and using the latest digital technologies.”
The partnership is a revenue-sharing one, which requires no capex commitment nor licence cost for its use by MTN, Dooka’s anchor client. There will also be no service fees for MTN suppliers until at least January 2024.
Committed to play our part in creating shared value and securing a Net Zero future, MTN Group today issued our first Climate Report aligned to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework.
Climate change presents a unique vehicle to unlock innovative opportunities for green industrialization and job creation critical in contributing towards Africa’s progress. At MTN, we are committed to achieve Net Zero by 2040. Taking climate action is an imperative to secure the socioeconomic development of our markets.
The TCFD guides companies in preparing climate-related disclosures to ensure consistency and alignment among organisations across the globe. MTN’s first TCFD-aligned report demonstrates the actions we are taking to build a more resilient financial system through climate-related disclosures.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report lists the top three threats in the medium and long term as failure to act on climate; extreme weather; and biodiversity loss. The world is already experiencing record heat waves and droughts, heavy rain and flooding. In April 2022, heavy storms in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa led to the loss of lives, destroyed thousands of homes and caused widespread infrastructure damage and power outages, also affecting MTN’s sites.
At MTN, we recognise that climate change has the potential to impact our business, as well as the communities we serve. We are taking action now to evaluate these risks, guided by the TCFD framework as a means of continuously creating shared value for our stakeholders.
We are also working to understand the potential opportunities in transitioning to a low-carbon economy and adopting clean energy technologies. We have already started integrating electric vehicles, solar and wind energy, and battery storage into our operations.
In 2021, we launched our Project Zero to leverage the latest technologies and service partnerships to deliver greater energy efficiency, lower our carbon emissions, reduce risks and improve our cost controls. This was followed by our commitment in February 2022 to support the recommendations of the TCFD.
We are pleased with the progress we have made so far, but there is still much work to be done. No company can do it alone, and we intend to use our influence, technology and reach to inspire and enable wider action to tackle the risks and opportunities presented by climate change to the benefit of our customers, and our stakeholders.
To view the report: https://bit.ly/3L6GIoV
MTN Group this week hosted MTN Nigeria’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee in Johannesburg for a strategy retreat during which the leadership of the Group’s largest subsidiary reflected on its strategic priorities for the next three years.
The three-day working visit – hosted by MTN Group Chairman Mcebisi Jonas and MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita – brought together for the first time in South Africa the boards and executive management teams of MTN Nigeria and MTN Group. The MTN Nigeria delegation was led by Chairman Ernest Ndukwe and CEO Karl Toriola.
During the trip, MTN Group and MTN South Africa held engagements attended by South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor and Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, as well as by Nigeria’s High Commissioner Muhammad Haruna Manta.
“Strong bi-national relationships between Nigeria and South Africa are critical for Africa’s progress,” said Jonas. “As MTN, we appreciate that our own progress cannot happen without the two nations building stronger and stronger ties and providing leadership to the continent.”
Mupita said MTN Nigeria represented approximately 40% of the value of MTN Group, and as such its achievements were key to the success of the Group: “As MTN Group, we are committed to supporting the business and ensuring that its success goes beyond just strong operational and financial performance, but also represents success for all stakeholders.”
“Initiatives such as extending rural broadband, driving financial inclusion from MTN Nigeria’s Payment Services Banking licence and ensuring further localisations remain critical for success and sustainability,” he added.
Jonas said MTN Nigeria was in good hands under the direction of Chairman Ndukwe and CEO Toriola. The MTN Nigeria leadership said that among the many discussions held in Johannesburg were how to navigate the unprecedented macro challenges that businesses across the world faced, as well as looking for the opportunities that these changes provided.
The MTN Nigeria leadership’s visit follows that of MTN Group’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee to Lagos in early July, when they held their own strategy retreat.
One of the four strategic priorities of MTN’s Ambition 2025 is to ‘create shared value’. Regularly engaging with our key stakeholders is essential for us to deliver on this priority.
Following on from strong first half 2022 results, MTN Group today announces the further deleveraging of the balance sheet with the early settlement of US$300 million in eurobonds with a 2024 maturity date. This brings MTN’s dollar-denominated debt down to 35% of total holding company (Holdco) debt on a H1 2022 proforma basis.
In late August, MTN invited eligible holders of the US$750 million eurobond – due to mature in November 2024 – to tender their notes for purchase by the company for cash. The offer attracted tenders of more than US$482 million. This was significantly more than the US$250 million originally intended for early settlement. As a result, MTN raised the final acceptance amount to US$300 million, which will be settled on Tuesday 6 September 2022.
“In line with our Ambition 2025 strategy, we are committed to deleveraging the balance sheet faster in line with our capital allocation framework,” said MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita. “This week’s early settlement supports delivery of this commitment as well as of the execution and delivery of our medium-term guidance to maintain the Holdco leverage below 1.5x.”
MTN Group Chief Financial Officer Tsholofelo Molefe said that as the settlement would be funded from available cash balances, it did not affect the pro-forma Holdco leverage of 0.8x at 30 June 2022. “However, on a pro-forma basis, the settlement improves the end-June 2022 ratio of non-rand to rand debt to 35:65 from the 42:58 ratio reported in the Group’s interim results.”
At end-December 2021, the Holdco leverage was 1.0x. The improvement in the first half of 2022 to 0.8x was boosted by the repatriation of R9.4 billion in cash from our operating companies (including R4.5 billion from MTN Nigeria).
MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Christian Bombrun as CEO: Digital Platforms, effective 1 September 2022.
Christian takes over from Minnie Harris, who has been acting in the role since April 2022. Minnie, who has been double-hatting over the past four months will now focus solely on her responsibilities as Chief Financial Officer (CFO): Digital Platforms.
In his role, Christian will be responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining the long-term growth and commercial strategy for Digital in MTN.
“Christian is a seasoned professional in the areas of entertainment, digital and technologies, and brings 25 years of experience to MTN,” said Jens Schulte-Bockum, Group Chief Operating Officer.
Christian joins MTN from the Emmanuel Macron presidential campaign in France, where he was the Head of Communication and Digital.
Prior to this mission, he spent 8 years at Orange in France and corporate, where his roles included Director of Products and Services for the French market and Director of Orange Content at group level (2020-2021). At Orange, his responsibilities included product design for the consumer market, as well as managing the pay TV and Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD), music games, ioT and financial services, OCS the Orange pay TV company, and the Orange movie studio.
Christian’s other roles include Deputy Managing Director of M6 Web (the online and digital division of M6 Group) and Director of Marketing and Business Development at the Canal+ Group.
He holds a Masters Degree in Management Science at IMT Business and a Masters Degree in Television, Telecoms and Internet, from Dauphine University (Paris).
MTN Group is pleased to announce that Marvin Ncube has been appointed Executive: Business Finance, effective 1 September 2022.
Marvin is a seasoned finance executive with more than 19 years’ experience in strategic business planning, business performance, capex management, statutory reporting and revenue assurance.
In his role, Marvin will lead three core finance sub functions which impact and influence financial business performance for the Group. These are Group Financial Planning and Analysis, Regional and Manco Finance Business Partnering and Group Capital Management.
“Given his vast experience, expertise and accomplishments, I am confident that Marvin will add immense value to these portfolios and to the Group,” said Tsholo Molefe, Group Chief Financial Officer.
Marvin joins MTN Group from Telkom, where he was the Group Executive: Group Financial Controller. Prior to Telkom, he was the Finance Business Partner (Divisional CFO) at Eskom.
He served on a number of boards including the South African Dental Association (SADA), Mozambique Transmission Company (Montraco), Eskom and Trans-Africa Projects, providing strategic insights and direction.
Marvin is a CA (SA) with an MBA from University of Pretoria (GIBS). He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degree from Rhodes University and a Postgraduate Diploma from the University of Cape Town.
MTN Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Willington Ngwepe to the new post of Chief of Staff in the office of the Group President and Chief Executive Officer, effective 1 October 2022.
Willington joins from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), where he has spent the last five years as CEO. Before that, he was ICASA’s chief operating officer.
“Willington brings with him extensive leadership, technology and regulatory experience that will be invaluable as we execute on our strategic intent of leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “We welcome him to the MTN Group, where his focus will be on providing advisory, strategic and operational support on specific matters driven directly from the GCEO office.”
Willington has a LLB and LLM (Communication Law) from the University of the Witwatersrand, and an LLM (Tax Law) from the University of South Africa.