MTN Ghana Raises $237 Million as It Misses Share Sale Target
(Bloomberg) -- MTN Group Ltd.'s unit in Ghana raised 1.1 billion cedis ($237 million) selling about a third of the shares the wireless carrier made available in an initial public offering, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.
MTN, Africa's biggest mobile-phone company by subscribers, sold 1.5 billion securities of the 4.6 billion shares at 75 pesewas each when it offered a 35 percent stake in the unit in May, the document showed. The shares will be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange with trading due to start Sept. 5, according to the sale's prospectus.
MTN confirmed the result in a statement emailed by the bourse on Thursday.
Even though MTN failed to sell all the shares on offer, the proceeds are more than three times larger than the previous biggest IPO in Ghana, when Agricultural Development Bank Ltd. raised 326 million cedis in December 2016. The IPO result comes as MTN fights a surprise order late Wednesday from Nigeria's central bank to refund $8.1 billion it says was repatriated improperly from the country over eight years through 2015.
Read more: MTN plunges after Nigeria demands $8.1 billion be returned
The Johannesburg-based company sold shares in Ghana to meet conditions agreed to with the government in 2015, when it acquired the right to use spectrum for fourth-generation wireless services.
The number of securities sold account for 12.5 percent in the unit as the parent's holding lowers to 85 percent, with the rest held by existing minority holders, Kwabena Osei-Boateng, managing director of transaction adviser IC Securities, told reporters Thursday in the capital, Accra.
--With assistance from Loni Prinsloo.
To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at mdzawu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Robert Brand
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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