By Ritah Kemigisa
MTN Uganda has officially been listed on the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) and it commenced trading officially today after raising shs 535.9 billion in the just-concluded Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Speaking at the Listing event, Anne Juuko, the Stanbic Bank CEO said the Listing is historic because it is the first of its kind and the biggest IPO in Africa this year.
According to Juuko, out of the 2.9 billion shares that were put on offer, 222 million were bonus.
She adds that 84% of Ugandans have invested over shs 54 billion while 9% for the rest of East Africans and 4% international.
“At the core of this IPO was a need for having Ugandans play a bigger role? With the numbers we got, this shows a true step in sharing value,” said Juuko.
Meanwhile, MTN Uganda CEO Wim Vanhelleputte says the IPO journey has been a success adding that the number of Ugandans who own shares in the company has risen from 4% to 15%.
He adds that at least 100% of the senior managers at the company and 65% of employees bought shares in the company.
“Today marks the conclusion of a remarkable journey which has given over 20 000 Ugandans the opportunity to become owners of MTN Uganda,
He added that “We are particularly proud of our digital m-IPO collaboration with the USE, an African first. More than 93% of the applications were made via the m-IPO platform, with the majority of these investors new market participants.”
The listing has reduced the ownership of MTN Group in MTN Uganda from 96% to 83.05%.
