MTN has kick-started the process of listing shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange. The telecommunications group said in a statement on Tuesday that MTN Ghana has launched an initial public offering, which will be open for nine weeks and close on 31 July 2018.
The group is required to float shares on the local stock exchange under an agreement with Ghanaian authorities for access to 4G spectrum licence in the 800MHz band, which was granted to it in late 2015. In terms of that deal, MTN must sell up to 35% of its shares.
A key objective of the listing is to target a broad base of Ghanaian investors to share in the risks and rewards of ownership of MTN Ghana, MTN said in the statement. It comes ahead of a planned listing of its biggest operating subsidiary, MTN Nigeria, which should go ahead later this year assuming market conditions are conducive.
Under the IPO, MTN Ghana is offering up to 4.6bn shares made up of newly issued shares and a sale of existing shares held by MTN Group through its wholly-owned subsidiary Investcom.
The public offer represents up to 35% of the issued shares of MTN Ghana and implies an enterprise valuation of about GHS10bn (R27.1bn at the time of writing). “As per Ghana market standards, the offer is a fixed price offer where a volume of shares is made available at a fixed price,” the group said.
“The minimum amount to be raised for the offer to be deemed successful and for the listing to proceed is approximately GHS0.35bn, which represents approximately 10% of the total offer size. Given the objective of targeting a broad base of Ghanaian investors, allocation to non-Ghanaian investors is to be restricted to 5% of the issued shares of MTN Ghana.”
The allotment of shares will be done at the discretion of the MTN Ghana board, which will “apply its discretion to (among other things) ensure compliance with the JSE listing requirements”. — © 2018 NewsCentral Media