If all regulatory approvals are met, MTN Rwanda could welcome new local shareholders within a few months. This will be the materialization of its desire to allow more Rwandans to benefit from the financial opportunities offered by telecoms.

The Rwandan subsidiary of the South African telecoms group MTN has announced its intention to list part of its capital on the Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE), the local stock exchange, in the first half of 2021. It is through the 20% of shares held by the special investment vehicle Crystal Telecom Ltd., owned by the company Crystal Ventures, that the transaction will be completed.

For Crystal Telecom, it will in fact be a repurchase of all its shares from its shareholders in exchange for MTN Rwanda shares as consideration (exchange of shares). Once in their possession, the new direct holders of MTN Rwanda shares will then be able to trade them freely and benefit from a potentially improved valuation due to the elimination of the structure of Crystal Telecom and the associated costs. Once the operation is completed, Crystal Telecom will deregister from the stock exchange as well as from the Rwandan business register before closing its doors.

According to Mitwa Ng’ambi, CEO of MTN Rwanda, the announced IPO of the company “  reaffirms our commitment to Rwanda. This is a transformative event in MTN’s history, and we are sure we could not have achieved it without the support of our stakeholders, partners and customers  ”.

 Following him, Ralph Mupita, CEO of MTN Group, stressed that “this  is an important first step towards increasing local participation in the business and building financial markets in Rwanda “.

According to MTN Rwanda, this IPO is subject to applicable regulatory and governance approvals, as well as favorable market conditions.

Source: Agence Ecofin