MTN makes U-turn on divestment in Botswana’s Mascom Wireless

The parent company of Nigeria’s biggest Telco, MTN Group, would no longer be proceeding with plans to sell its stake in Bostwana’s Mascom Wireless after certain conditions to the transaction were not met, the company said Thursday.

MTN ended talks with joint venture partner Econet Wireless to sell its stake in the Botswana mobile phone service provider, but opened possibility of a future deal.

“In the longer term, if somebody came with a very attractive offer for the business, we’ll apply our minds then,” said Ralph Mupita, MTN Group’s chief financial officer.

MTN had announced that it was divesting from the Bostwana mobile phone service provider, where it has a 53 percent stake valued at $300 million, in the second half of 2019.

The proposed sale of interest was part of a three-year 15 billion rand ($1.00 billion) divestment plan by MTN to prune its operations and focus on high growth markets.

The plan kicked off in March this year and has seen MTN rake in $140 million from asset sales in the first half of 2019, some which include a sell-down its interest in Jumia Technologies to 18.9 percent from 29.7 percent through an IPO of the e-commerce business in London.

With respect to its on-going divestment plans, Mupita said MTN is in advanced discussions to dispose of its 49 percent stake in ATC Ghana and ATC Uganda which amounts to around 7 billion rand and 8 billion rand, respectively.
The Telco is also awaiting regulatory processes for the redemption of MTN Nigeria preference shares that have a value of $315 million for MTN Group.

MTN Nigeria in nine months of 2019 grew profit by about 18 percent to N148.32 billion after it grew revenue by almost 12 percent to N854.48 billion.

On the other hand, the South African Group on Thursday said its service revenue rose 9.6 percent from last year in the nine months of 2019 on the back of strong results from its businesses in Nigeria and Ghana.

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