West Africa’s second-largest economy, Ghana is seeing its largest initial public offering courtesy of MTN Group’s IPO.
South Africa’s MTN Group has now kicked off its IPO to sell about 30% stake in the mobile carrier to local investors.
According to the information released in the IPO manual, MTN Group wants to sell about 4.63 billion shares in MTN Ghana at 0.75 cedis per share.
The company’s group vice president Ebenezer Asante Asante tolf Reuters News that the company had earmarked $144 million for 2018 capital expenditure, mostly to upgrade technology, including rolling out fibre connectivity to urban homes and boosting smart phone services.
The public offering, which closes at the end of July, is one of the requirements MTN agreed with Ghanaian regulators in 2015 to allow for the introduction of its fourth generation, high-speed mobile data network.
Asante said foreign investors are allowed to buy only up to 5 percent of the offer. “The focus really is to give as much opportunity to Ghanaians to share in the success story of the company.”
Accra-based brokerage firm IC Securities is lead adviser for the transaction. If successful, MTN Ghana will be the most valuable company and the first mobile operator to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Last December MTN signed a 510 million cedi ($112 million) syndicated loan from nine banks and was oversubscribed by 590 million cedis.
