Immediately after the listing of the MTN Nigeria Communications Plc in the Nigerian bourse, things seem to be wobbling for the South African telecom giant. The flipside of the listing seems to be unavailability of 20% free float. In stock market parlance, free float would mean shares of the company that can be publicly traded, so that the retail investors can buy and sell in the secondary market. Whether this is an inadvertent technical error or a willful neglect, the fact is that the shares are skyrocketing due to scarcity and the retail investors are not getting a chance to be a stakeholder in the company’s stock. Some stakeholders in the capital market have faulted the listing of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc on the nation’s bourse in spite of the mandatory 20 per cent free float. A number of retail investors have pointed out this anomaly to the stock market regulator and urged the watch dog to set right the fault lines so that retail investors can participate in the market. They complain that some vested interests including corporate entities have grabbed the stocks in one pretext or the other and sidelined the retail investors completely from participating in the market game.
Some of the retail investors complain that the shareholding structure presently is that 23.92 percent of the shares of the company is held by institutions and high net worth individuals flouting the norm that 20% should be mandatorily be set aside for retail investors. A close look at the shareholding pattern of MTN Nigeria shows that MTN International Ltd, the controlling company, owns as high as 76.08% of shares of the company, which in absolute terms works out to 15,485,544,o50 shares. The non controlling entities like Stanbic IBTC own 9.64, Victor Odili, 3.6% and Mobile Telephone Network NICBV owns 2.75%. The other equity holders are Government Employees Pension Fund 1.75% and Pascal Dozie 1.67%. There are several other non controlling stakeholders also having varying stakes ranging from 1.75% to 0.005%.
