Airtel Africa’s delayed $4.4b Nigeria listing gets new date

Lagos. Airtel Africa aims to list on the Nigerian bourse today, one of the financial advisors arranging the issue said. This is after the exchange postponed the listing which had been scheduled for Friday.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange on Friday said the secondary listing of Airtel Africa shares planned for July 5 had been postponed to ensure the telecoms company meets its listing requirements.

A source at the arranger told Reuters the delay was due to a manual allotment process of transferring the shares to new investors.

India’s Bharti Airtel last week offered shares in its African unit via a London IPO and it would dual-list in Nigeria, its biggest market in Africa.

Nigeria’s bourse said it postponed the cross-border listing of 3.76 billion shares of Airtel Africa, but allowed Airtel to go ahead with an investor presentation. It said that it would inform the market on when the conditions had been met.

Airtel set its Nigerian listing price at NGN 363 (roughly Rs. 69) per share, the bourse said, via a book building process which valued the company at NGN 1.364 trillion ($4.44 billion or roughly Rs. 3,03,918 crores). In May, Africa’s biggest telecoms firm MTN listed its Nigerian unit in Lagos in a $6.5 billion (roughly Rs. 4,44,925 crores) float that made it the second-largest stock on the bourse by market value.

Nigerian stocks have been crimped over low growth in Africa’s biggest economy which has been further stymied with the president’s failure to appoint a cabinet four months after winning a second term. Local stocks have fallen 6.8 per cent this year and shed 17.8 per cent last year.

The local bourse said Airtel shares registered in Britain may be moved from the London market to Nigeria subject to approval by the custodians in London and currency regulation in Nigeria. But Airtel shares registered in Nigeria cannot be moved to London, it said. (Gadgets 360)