MTN Nigeria’s initial public offering (IPO) has been set for August and approved by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BusinessDay reported citing a source familiar with the matter. The daily reported that MTN Nigeria is expected to attract a market value of between NGN 3.2 trillion and NGN 3.9 trillion, and the proceeds of the IPO will go towards reducing debt and funding the local business.
The mobile operator has about 402 million shares, and these will be split 50-for 1 to create 20 billion shares ahead of the IPO, according to a pre-IPO presentation seen by the paper. The group recently appointed Chapel Hill Denham as lead manager for the initial public offering. Other appointed advisers are South Africa’s Rand Merchant Bank, Renaissance Capital and Vetiva Capital.
MTN had originally planned to list its Nigerian office on the country’s stock exchange last year but delayed the decision due to unfavourable market conditions. The listing is part of an agreement with Nigerian authorities to settle regulatory violations last year. MTN has been engaging extensively with the Nigerian Stock Exchange on the structure and parameters of the listing, BusinessDay's sources said.
MTN did not comment on the report it's moving ahead with the IPO. A spokesman for the SEC told Reuters that the company had yet to file an application for the listing and still needed to convert from a private to a public company before it could sell shares.
