MTN Ghana launches IPO

MTN Group’s subsidiary, Scancom (MTN Ghana) launched an Initial Public Offer (IPO) in Ghana with the intention of listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The offer is expected to be open for nine weeks and close on 31 July 2018.

Under the IPO, MTN Ghana is offering up to 4,637,394,533 MTN Ghana shares, consisting of a combination of newly issued shares and a sale of existing shares held by MTN Group through its wholly-owned subsidiary Investcom Consortium Holding SA. The public offer represents up to 35% of the issued shares of MTN Ghana, which implies an enterprise valuation of approximately GHS 10 billion for MTN Ghana.

As per Ghana market standards, the offer is a fixed price offer where a volume of shares is made available at a fixed price. The minimum amount to be raised for the offer to be deemed successful and for the listing to proceed is approximately GHS 0,35 billion, which represents approximately 10% of the total offer size. Given the objective of targeting a broad base of Ghanaian investors, allocation to non-Ghanaian investors is to be restricted to 5% of the issued shares of MTN Ghana.

In 2015, MTN Ghana won a bid for a 4G/LTE licence in the 800 MHz spectrum. The National Communications Authority (NCA) required MTN Ghana to offer Ghanaian investors an opportunity to own up to 35% of its shares. Listing on the GSE was also confirmed by the NCA as an option to meet the localisation requirement.

MTN Group has 217 million users of which 69 million are active data users. MTN Ghana is the largest commercially owned mobile operator with 47.6 per cent market share. The company has 17.8 million subscribers of which 12 million are active data users and 7.1 million active mobile money customers.