MTN Is At It Again!

Sunkanmi Vaughan.
21 May,2019

Definitely, MTN is at it again and EFCC should please move in and investigate the whole process of the listing by introduction of 20 billion shares that is literally not seen by anyone and just being discreetly traded within the holders of the stock to push up the price up to the point it will be off loaded and dumped on the unsuspecting and innocent investing Nigerian public.

Would I call it Mauritius/South African wonder that 20 billion shares of a foreign-controlled company were listed in our national bourse and almost all the citizens of the nation who desire to buy the shares of the foreign company can't find just one unit out of the 20 billion to buy!On our own bourse O!!

While this artificial scarcity may have made sense if it was caused only by the forces of demand and supply but looking at the holding structure of the MTN shares and when I calculated the amount the foreign major shareholder,MTN Mauritius ,which allegedly owns 76.08% of the 20 billion shares has made since the listing last Thursday,my fears as a Nigerian citizen and investor was confirmed.

Real Owners of MTN Nigeria.

According to premium times in its report https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/business-news/330649-real-owners-of-mtn-nigeria-revealed.html ,
76.08% of the 20 billion shares are owned by the foreign investor, MTN International. It's this foreign investor that was fully in charge of MTN during the period of regulatory infarctions by MTN. The bankers of the company(one of the banks,Diamond bank,is now defunct) got slammed with heavy fines by the CBN and MTN itself fined N330b by NCC ( after a reduction from N1.04 trillion) ,with another alleged case of tax infarction against MTN from the office of the Attorney General of the federation still in the court,I am seriously worried as a citizen if the government doesn't protect its investing citizens from MTN investors.


How Much Has Been Made By The Foreign Investor?


MTN International (Mauritius) Limited, has the controlling 76.08 per cent equity, or 15,485,544,050 shares which was listed at N90.
As at today, the same share costs N131.70, if you subtract the amount it was listed by introduction, it means the foreign investor has realised N41.7 on each unit of the
15,485,544,050 totalling a whopping N645,747,186,885 ( approx a trillion naira) in four days!! By hoarding the shares and "moving the shares among the holders" under the pretext of cross deals, if not stopped immediately by EFCC, these few unpatriotic elements will successfully and artificially push the price up and later dump it on the unsuspecting and innocent investing Nigerian public yet no value has been created in the Nigerian economy while MTN eventually repatriates the funds back to Mauritius and most likely eventually South Africa, the homestead of the real owners of MTN. For me, I believe this is not a fair way a foreign company like MTN should reward its host Nigeria and Nigerians for the love shown to the company and its brand.

What did the regulators say?

The management of the Nigeria Stock Exchange(NSE) issued a press release today and reading the script reminds me of the build up to the crash of the market in 2008 from which the market is yet to recover, unlike other bourses. In the release titled "NSE clarifies Concerns on MTN Nigeria, http://www.nse.com.ng/mediacenter/pressreleases/Pages/nse-clarifies-concerns-on-mtn-premium-board--listing.aspx
The NSE is clearly not seeing the damage being done to the market or pretends not to be seeing it and the reasons are not far fetched; the Oscar Onyeama-led NSE is smiling to the banks receiving mouth-watering commissions from these 'cross deals', each member of the NSE management is yet to be investigated to find out if the individual members of the NSE management or their relatives or companies owned by them have these 'ghostly' MTN shares and might just be bidding their time too to join others feeding fat from the loophole in the NSE market framework when they will dump it on hapless Nigerians, the Sheriff,President Muhammadu Buhari is not in town and finally, the Vice President,Prof Yemi Osibanjo, who is currently holding fort in the absence of the president, is an MTN shareholder too.

For these reasons,EFCC should please move in to protect the Nigerian economy.

Vaughan wrote in from Lagos.

Cc. Myndd44 FOD Naijacutee dominique puskin