MTN Has Suspended Full Year Dividends Despite It Adding 29 Million New Customers
MTN Has Suspended Full Year Dividends Despite It Adding 29 Million New Customers. MTN Group has reported a strong set of results for the 2020 financial year, adding 29 million customers, growing adjusted headline earnings per share by 52% and more than doubling operating cash flow to R28.3-billion. Despite the good numbers, MTN suspended its full-year dividend due to its near-term focus on faster deleveraging of its holding company as well as three conditions which negatively impacted this objective. The three conditions related to uncertainties are around cash up streaming (repatriation) from Nigeria, the timing of proceeds from the asset realisation programme, and Covid-19 impacts.
“In light of these material uncertainties, the board has also suspended the dividend policy and anticipates communicating a revised medium-term dividend policy when we announce our 2021 results in March 2022.” it told Tech Central. MTN has announced a new strategy, called Ambition 2025, to accelerate growth and unlock the value of its infrastructure assets and platforms.
Under the Ambition 2025 strategy, MTN CEO Ralph Mupita said the group is looking to structurally separate its infrastructure assets and platforms, such as fintech, to reveal value and attract third-party capital and partnerships into these businesses, over the medium term. “We believe that Ambition 2025 will position the business to capture the exciting opportunities across our markets and our medium-term guidance has been enhanced to reflect this accelerating growth outlook. To support this, we plan to invest approximately R29.1-billion in our network, fintech and digital services platforms in 2021.” Mupita told Tech Central.
MTN Group Limited, is a South African multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African, European and Asian countries. Its head office is in Johannesburg; in 2016 MTN recorded 232.6 million subscribers, making it the eighth largest mobile network operator in the world, and the largest in Africa. Active in over 20 countries, one-third of company revenue come from Nigeria, where it holds about 35% market share.
It is for this reason that over 560 million Africans are under coverage of a high-speed digital highway, while over 30 million Africans have a bank in their pocket with MTN Mobile Money. Employment creation is a reality for over 5 million people selling MTN airtime and MoMo services as it helps to empower over 4 million SMEs to make it big.
By Thomas Chiothamisi
