By Adedapo Adesanya
More shares of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc were offloaded on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday, following announcement by the company that it was closing all its stores and service centres nationwide until further notice as a result of reprisal attacks from Nigerians due to ongoing xenophobic violence in South Africa.
An analysis of its traded equities on Wednesday by Business Post showed that investors in the company sold a total of 3,807,980 units of MTN Nigeria shares yesterday, higher than the 3,491,221 units traded on Tuesday at the stock market.
This brought about a 1.07 percent decline or N1.50k loss recorded on Wednesday by the telecommunications firm, closing at N138.50k from N140 it sold the day before.
At the close of business yesterday, the market value of MTN Nigeria shares on the NSE in turn dropped by N30.5 billion to N2.819 trillion from N2.850 trillion on Tuesday.
MTN, a South African telecoms company, is the biggest mobile telecommunication network provider in Nigeria, with 38 percent share of the telecoms market and 65,379,196 subscribers all over the country.
In a statement issued ahead of the closure on Tuesday, the CEO, MTN Nigeria, Mr Ferdi Moolman, said the company stood against all forms of violence and xenophobia.
“MTN Nigeria strongly condemns hate, prejudice and xenophobia and reiterate our unequivocal condemnation of all violence. We seek to connect people, bring people together and provide a platform for everyone’s voice to be heard.
“We are against all forms of bigotry and discrimination; they should have no place in society,” he had said.
Dipo Olowookere