MTN Ghana float shares in Western Region

The MTN Ghana has encouraged prospective investors in their share promotion to seek expertise advice and satisfy all conditions to enable them to fully become shareholders in the giant telecommunication business.

"As many of you are already aware, MTN is listing its shares to meet conditions agreed in 2015, when it acquired the right for the 4G license, we have made history as the first Telecom to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange at the conclusion of this exercise."

Mr Eli Hini who stated this at the launch of the Initial Public Offering at Takoradi said the MTN would continue to entrench its position as the leader in Ghana, “we are hopeful that this transaction will have a positive impact on our local market, including this region, expanding the frontiers of inclusion.”

Historically, in 1996 Scancom made history by being the first company to introduce GSM technology in Ghana. Upon acquisition of the company in 2006, MTN inherited 2.5 million subscribers and quickly achieved the 10 million subscriber milestone within five years. Today, MTN has 17 million subscribers with about 1.8 coming from the Western Region.

He said MTN paid a total of GHC1.059billion as taxes for the year 2017 and that out of its profits the MTN Ghana Foundation was well resourced to continue to invest in the areas of Health, Education and Economic Empowerment.

Mr Hini said in the area of technology, MTN continued to invest in its services adding,recently our world-class rural solution has been recognised by the GSMA at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

On the MTN shares, he said by investing in MTN Ghana, one could benefit as we maintain the track record of investing in our business, focusing on high growth opportunities and delivering attractive financial returns, double-digit revenue, strong profit margins and a dividend payout target of 60.00 per cent, to our shareholders.

“So, on this historic day as we move into another phase of our business, which seeks to give Ghanaians that unique opportunity to own a share of MTN, I am excited to state that the public share offer of MTN Ghana began on Tuesday 29th May and will end on July 31st 2018 at 5pm. The entire offer period is for two months after which the allotment will begin. We are hoping that by September we will have ended the entire process for listing to begin.”

He said interested applicants may contact their receiving banks or visit MTN Branches,"I am very delighted to say that we are also allowing shares to be bought through Mobile Money. Our checks from GSMA confirms that this is the first time that Mobile Money will be used to buy shares in an IPO (and subsequently trade them) anywhere in Africa or the world over" .

"This channel demonstrates another use case for Mobile Money and will accelerate financial inclusion in the capital markets of Ghana, for many people in the length and breadth of this country who would not ordinarily have access to the capital markets.”

“We are quite pleased with the number of applications received using this channel within 24 hours post opening the offer. With about 1.14million Mobile Money subscribers here in the Western Region, we expect those who are interested in using that channel to have a smooth convenient experience. Let me add that we have waived the charges for Momo for this specific transaction. This means that if you use Momo to buy shares you will not be charged any transaction fee,” he added.