Telecoms giant, MTN has secured over GH?1.1 billion in a historic Initial Public Offering (IPO), according to persons with knowledge of the offer results.
Background
MTN in May formally launched its Initial Public Offering seeking to raise about GH?3.47 billion. It was hoping to sell each share at GHp75 by issuing 4.6 billion shares.
MTN also pegged the minimum amount to be raised under the offer at GH¢347 million. This amount, if secured would make the offer successful.
The telecoms giant through the IPO is giving out about 35 per cent of the business to the public.
Details of the results
Sources say about 127,000 participated in the offer. This could indeed make the offer the biggest in the country in recent times and the largest in the history of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
Listing
The official release of the IPO results is expected on Thursday, paving the way to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange on September 5.
Pre IPO concerns
Before the Initial Public Offering, there were concerns that looking at the size of the economy, MTN may struggle to raise the targeted amount.
Some government officials had also argued that the offer could put some pressure on the Ghana cedi resulting in some sharp depreciation.
However, officials of MTN rejected some of these concerns saying that any dividend payments would be staggered.
Activities on the local bourse
Earlier, Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Kofi Yamoah stated the local bourse was excited about MTN’s IPO which if successful will lead to a listing on the exchange.
Speaking exclusively to JoyBusiness, Mr Yamoah described MTN’s listing as one that would attract a large number of retail investors to the capital market and boost activity if their IPO is successful.
“The telecoms sector has attracted a large number of GH subscribers, MTN alone has 7 million plus subscribers and so if in the course of its offer, we can leverage on that to get a minimum of 1 million subscribers out of the 7 million being retail investors on this market, that will bring us a lot of liquidity post-listing of MTN.”
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