Airtel Africa announced on Thursday it had picked the London Stock Exchange for the listing of its mobile money business due later this year.
“We believe a London listing will provide access to a broad international investor base and support our ambition to unlock the long-term value of one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms,” CEO Sunil Taldar said.
The African-focused telecommunications group is targeting a listing of its third-largest unit Airtel Money in the second half of 2026, later than originally planned due to war-related cost pressures.
The firm forecast pressure on its near-term core profit margins for the second time in the last four months, citing higher energy costs arising from the Iran conflict.
The Iran conflict has triggered a crude supply crunch and upended supply chains, raising energy and logistics costs for companies everywhere and prompting forecast cuts, project delays and cost-cutting drives.
The company, however, reported higher first-quarter revenue and profits benefiting from strong demand for mobile networks, adoption of new digital technologies and artificial intelligence, and currency tailwinds.
Biggest in years
The listing, when it comes, could be one of London’s biggest in years. Reports have suggested the IPO could value Airtel Money at about US$10-billion and raise some $1.5-billion, with Citi leading the process and additional banks recently invited to join the syndicate. Airtel Africa had also weighed a Middle Eastern exchange before settling on London – and a float of that size would be a coup for the London Stock Exchange, which has endured a yearslong drought of major listings.
Airtel Money is one of the continent’s largest mobile financial services platforms, serving more than 54 million customers with digital payments, transfers, savings and merchant services across markets where formal banking penetration remains low. In processed value, it trails only Safaricom’s M-Pesa and MTN’s Mobile Money among African operators.
The unit is Airtel Africa’s third-largest business, contributing 21.1% of group revenue. The group had originally targeted a listing in the first half of 2026, but pushed the timeline out in May, citing unfavourable market conditions and war-driven cost pressures.
A successful IPO would make Airtel Money the first of Africa’s big three mobile money platforms to be listed separately from its telecoms parent – a structural separation that shareholders in rivals MTN and Safaricom have long agitated for.
MTN carved out its fintech operations into a separate group structure and sold a minority stake to Mastercard, valuing the business at $5.2-billion, but has stopped short of a listing, while Safaricom has faced repeated calls from investors to unlock the value of M-Pesa through a spin-off. Airtel Money’s London debut will give the market its first clean, publicly traded benchmark for valuing African mobile money – a number MTN and Safaricom shareholders will study closely.
Airtel Africa, a subsidiary of Indian telecoms giant Bharti Airtel, operates in 14 countries, with Nigeria its largest market alongside operations across East, Central and West Africa. The group itself listed in London in 2019, with a secondary listing in Lagos.
Read: Major African telco postpones mobile money listing
Mastercard and TPG’s Rise Fund took minority stakes in Airtel Money in 2021, investments that came with a commitment to an eventual public listing. — Prerna Bedi, (c) 2026 Reuters, with additional reporting by Duncan McLeod, (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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