Mobile giant MTN Nigeria is to list its shares in the Nigerian capital market.
The issuers for the Initial Public Offer (IPO) are Citi bank and Stanbic IBTC
A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) source said: “Going public and the decision made by MTN to list its shares will be a major milestone in the market, considering the various efforts being made by both the SEC and Capital Market Masterplan Implementation Council (CAMMIC) to encourage major companies operating in the country to list their shares at the Exchange.”
According to the official, “listing of the MTN shares will be beneficial to the company, our market and the economy because it will facilitate transparency in transactions of its shares and provide liquidity or ready marketability of the shares on the trading floor of the Exchange”.
He added that “our market capitalisation will increase and there will be timely disclosure of corporate information”.
As part of efforts to make the public listing of the shares a success, the CEO of MTN, Mr. Ferdi Moolman, was quoted to have said that they were “in SEC to seek its understanding and cooperation on some of the unique features that the proposed IPO will be coming to the market with”.
The features include, combining retail offering with book building, electronic subscriptions, payments through the use of mobile phones and green shoe method of stabilising stock prices post listing.
SEC, through its Director-General Munir Gwarzo has pledged its support for MTN on its planned fund raising through the capital market.
According to sources privy to the meeting, Mr Gwarzo highlighted the fact that “although some of the features mentioned by the CEO seemed to be new in our market, the Commission had been leveraging the Information and Communication Technology in implementing its capital market MasterPlan”.
Within the last one year, SEC, in collaboration with other stakeholders, has successfully implemented the E-dividend, Dematerialisation and Direct Cash settlement initiatives, which are all electronically-based. The Commission granted permission to use green shoe method of stabilising prices post offer when Seplat listed its shares at the stock exchange.
SEC has been advocating for telecommunications and power generating/distribution companies to get listed as one of the measures aimed at reviving the capital market, which has been on the downward trend since the market meltdown of 2008.
