Nigeria’s securities regulator has approved the South African telecoms firm MTN’s listing application for its $5 billion Nigerian unit.

Prior to the planned listing in the West African country, MTN Nigeria registered over 20 billion shares. Nigeria is MTN’s biggest market with 58 million users in 2018 and accounting for a third of the group of companies’ annual core profit.

The regulator said in a statement today, being Wednesday, 8th May, 2019, that:

MTN sought to come to the market by way of an introduction and they wrote to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) last week requesting for approval to register its existing shares.

He went further to say that the approval has now been granted.

MTN has faced challenges lately in the Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy, ranging from a tax issue to a fine over unregistered SIM cards.

In 2016, after agreeing to pay a $1.7 billion fine to settle the SIM card dispute with the government, the company said that it had plans to list its local unit on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Again earlier this year, MTN previously said it planned to list in the first half of 2019. But that didn’t happen.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.