Goddy Egene
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday said the shares of MTN Nigeria Plc will be listed on the Premium Board of exchange tomorrow (Thursday). The NSE, which disclosed this on its website, however, did not give details about the number and price at which MTN shares would be listed. It said the company would address capital market stakeholders with a ‘Facts behind the listing’ presentation.
The company recently registered 20.35 billion ordinary shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with about 20 per cent expected to be listed on the Nigerian bourse. SEC had last week confirmed the receipt of MTN’s application to list on the exchange by introduction.
“The SEC can confirm that we are in receipt of an application from MTN requesting for registration of their existing securities. They have applied for listing by introduction which will enable the company to be listed and allow shareholders sell their shares on the floor of the exchange. Their application is presently receiving attention,” it had said.
Ahead of its planned listing, MTN also appointed some new directors, including former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
The listing of the MTN is one of the factors that is expected to drive the stock market this year.
For instance, analysts at Afrinvest (West Africa) had said: although there were broad expectations for the listing of MTN Nigeria (MTNN) shares on the NSE( in 2018), however, this plan was stalled and is now expected in 2019. Given the pedigree of MTNN, which is a subsidiary of the South African company MTN Group and the biggest telecommunications operator in Nigeria, a listing of this magnitude is expected to drive interest and activity in the market, as well as boost market capitalisation,” they said.
The Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Ferdi Moolman had said but for the disagreement the company had with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last year, it would have gone ahead with its listing plan.
Meanwhile, the equities market extended its losing streak to seventh day as the NSE All-Share Index fell 0.47 per cent to close at 28,430.37. Similarly, market capitalisation shed N23.2 billion to close lower at N10.7 trillion.
Activity level also declined as volume and value traded fell 6.8 per cent and 3.4 per cent to 200.1 million shares and N2.7 billion respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were GTBank (33.1 million shares), Zenith Bank (27.0 million shares) and Access Bank (23 million shares).
