By Dipo Olowookere
If there is one event many investors at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) are anticipating and getting excited about, it is the listing of MTN Nigeria Plc on the exchange.
There have been several hypes about the commencement of trading of MTN Nigeria shares on the NSE and information at our disposal has it that there have been bids already waiting for willing sellers of the ‘priced asset’ of the moment.
Business Post reports that the telecom firm plans to list about 20.4 billion ordinary shares of 2 kobo on the local stock exchange at N90 each.
The equities would be admitted on the NSE Premium Board by a way of introduction, meaning the company is only listing existing shares of its existing holders.
MTN Nigeria was forced to make its shares tradable at the stock market after it got into the net of the Nigerian authorities for failing to disconnect some unregistered SIM cards on its network.
The company was heavily fined for it and as part of the settlement, it was asked to trade its shares on the NSE.
Many had thought MTN Nigeria Plc would conduct an Initial Public Offering (IPO) like it did in Ghana to allow creation of new shares for new shareholders, but the firm opted for the listing by way of introduction.
It, however, promised to do an IPO in the future.
The listing of MTN Nigeria on the NSE is expected to add N1.8 trillion to the market capitalisation, which has been on a downward trend lately. The market capitalisation closed yesterday at N10.627 trillion after reducing further by N51 billion.
As expected, holders of MTN Nigeria shares will be unwilling to sell for now so as to push the price up for them to sell at higher price.
Adedapo Adesanya