Telecommunications giant, South Africa’s MTN Group Limited says it may now list its Nigerian subsidiary on the Nigerian Stock Exchange earlier than the earlier envisaged June 2019.
Ferdi Moolman, chief executive of MTN Nigeria told newsmen in the commercial capital of Lagos, on Wednesday that the company’s listing by introduction could come “probably more towards April and May.”
MTN last week said it would list its Nigerian arm in the first half of 2019 without immediate plans to raise fresh capital from investors, before which there would be a retooling of its capital structure, including divesting from non-core assets like online retail market- Jumia and IHS, operators of telecom masts.
MTN in December agreed to a $53m payment to settle a dispute in Nigeria, ending a four-month multi-billion dollar dividend repatriation row that has hammered its share price.
The initial public offering of its Nigerian unit is expected to happen after the group resolves a $2bn tax dispute with the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
Only then will “the board assign a value to the company and we do an IPO,” Tobechukwu Okigbo told reporters in Lagos on Wednesday.
“It is difficult to put a value on it when there is such an issue,” he added.
A Federal High Court in Lagos has scheduled hearing on the matter for March 26.
The parent company anticipates that the listing will be “in two phases- listing by introduction and IPO eventually,” once the tax issue is cleared, MTN Nigeria Chief financial Officer Kunle Awobodu said also Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the company has also received an approval in principle to start mobile-payment services, seen as the new frontier for its key growth market due to a scarcity of banks in many parts of the continent and rising takeup of smartphones and data services.