MTN Meets Shareholders At Maiden AGM Amid Positive Prospects
Ghana’s market leader in the telecommunications sector, Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) Ghana has met its shareholders at its maiden and largest Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the Trade Fair Centre in Accra this week.
This comes exactly a year after MTN Ghana floated 35% of its shares through listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) as part of meeting conditions for acquiring a 4G License.
This gave thousands of indigenous Ghanaians the opportunity to own shares in the company.
The company’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) was the largest in the history of the Exchange in terms of volume and number of shareholders, raised gross proceeds, 1,146 million, with a transaction cost of GHC50.44 million.
The Net proceeds were used to pay special dividends to existing shareholders in line with provisions prior to the IPO and in pursuant to section 174 of the Companies Act 1963 (Act 79).
MTN Ghana reported a strong performance for the year with service revenue increasing by 23.5% driven by the strong growth in voice, data and digital revenue which includes Mobile Money (MoMo).
Reviewing the performance of MTN Ghana at the AGM, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Ghana, Mr. Selorm Adadevoh, revealed that at the end of December 2018, MTN Ghana’s market capitalization was GHC9.7 billion, which makes it the 3rd largest primary listed company on the GSE.
Also, Data revenue increased by 30.2% while digital revenue grew by 34.6% within which MoMo revenue grew by 60.3%.
“Data revenue growth was driven by 92.0% in increase in data traffic to 137,850TB. MTN MoMo supported digital revenue growth and further increased its contribution to total revenue to 17.7% and Voice Revenue increased by 15.1% and contributed to 46.0% to total revenue,” he disclosed.
Reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin declined by 2.2 percentage points to 37.6% following the introduction of the management fee agreement effective 1st May 2018.
“Adjusting for management fees, the EBITDA margin would have been higher by 3.1 percentage points to 40.7%. To maintain our relevance and to keep up with the dynamism of the telecommunications industry, MTN will continue to innovate, create and build meaningful relationships that will improve customer experience and further brighten lives. Our focus on the customer is paramount and drives continuous innovation,” Mr. Selorm Adadevoh stated.
He further indicated that cash from operations as well as external debts stood at GHC438 million as at December 2018.
“The group has utilized GHC445 million of its GHC510 million medium-term facility and during the year no debt covenants were breached.”
Touching on recognitions and awards, the MTN CEO said the investments by MTN continue to pay off beyond the business performance with a wide range of recognitions and awards for the company.
“MTN Ghana in the year under review won 40 awards including the prestigious Company of the Year 2017 by GIPC’s Ghana Club 100 Awards. MTN is the only Ghanaian company to win the UK-based investor in people Accreditation—Gold Employer of the year award. Also, for the past five years, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has given us great compliments and awards for being the largest tax payer within the Large Tax Payer Category in the country. MTN Ghana has over the past 5 years contributed an average of approximately 3% of the total revenue in Ghana.