Feelers from MTN Group says the company will be reporting a first-ever per-share loss as a public company. The result is due to be reported tomorrow (Friday).
The MTN Group will be reporting the loss because of the record fine the come will be paying in Nigeria, MTN’s revenue in South Africa has also dipped as result of competition and more concentrating on data.
According to Bloomberg, the loss will be between 2.85 rand and 3.15 rand per share in the six months through June, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement on Thursday. The so-called headline figure, which excludes one-time items, will be a loss of between 2.55 rand and 2.85 rand per share.
The biggest contributor to the decline was MTN’s agreement to pay a record 330 billion naira (USD1 billion) fine in Nigeria, the company’s largest market. The penalty was levied in October after MTN missed a deadline to disconnect unregistered subscribers, and the subsequent loss of customers further hurt operations in the country.
“MTN pushed the value of the entire fine onto the income statement,” Byron Lotter, a money manager at Vestact Ltd., which holds MTN stock, said by phone. “This is a once-off and expectations are that they will recover in the next year.”
MTN Nigeria announced last week that it will be listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange by 2017. The company will be looking to gain operational efficiency in Nigeria to ensure it recovers from the loss.
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