MTN Nigeria to offer incentive shares to eligible shareholders from IPO

By Chisom Nwatu

Leading telecom giant, MTN  Nigeria Communications Plc has announced plans to allot incentive shares to investors who participated in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) completed January 2022 and met the conditions entitling them to additional shares.

Uto Ukpanah, company secretary, MTN Nigeria Communications, who disclosed this in a signed statement addressed to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), said the terms of the offer included an incentive of one ordinary share for every 20 ordinary shares purchased and allotted up to a maximum of 250 ordinary shares.

He noted that eligible shareholders must hold a portion or all of the shares allotted to them from the offer as of 31 January 2023, the qualification date, subject to holding a minimum of 20 ordinary shares.

According to him, shareholders must have their names appear in the company’s register of members on the qualification date.

“Qualified shareholders will have their incentive shares credited to their CSCS accounts after the qualification date and obtaining the requisite regulatory approvals,” the document said.

The offer saw 114,938 new CSCS accounts opened for representing new market participants, with roughly 76 per cent of successful applicants via digital platforms being women and 85 per cent below the age of 40.

Previously, the local unit of Johannesburg-based MTN Group Limited concluded its first IPO shares sale in 2022, an offer that recorded 139.5 per cent oversubscribed necessitating the allocation of extra 86.3 million shares.

The telco giant had set out to sell 575 million ordinary shares then held by MTN International Mauritius Limited but ended up allotting 661.3 million to retail and institutional investors.