MTN expands customer base: dividend not announced

(4 minutes read)

·        MTN Group has reported results for the 2020 financial year, adding 29 million customers to its base

·        Its headline earnings per share increased  by 52% and more than doubling operating cash flow to R28.3-billion and  reported four-percentage point increase in return on equity to 17%

·        MTN suspended its full-year dividend due to its “near-term focus on faster deleveraging of its holding company

MTN Group has reported results for the 2020 financial year, adding 29 million customers to its base. Its headline earnings per share increased by 52%,  more than doubling operating cash flow to R28.3-billion and  reported four-percentage point increase in return on equity to 17%.

However, MTN suspended its full-year dividend due to its “near-term focus on faster deleveraging of its holding company. Apart from that, MTN has identified three negative factors impacting its future growth.

The three negative conditions are: uncertainties around repatriation from Nigeria, delays in  asset realization and of course  Covid-19 impacts.  The board now is toying with the idea of a revised medium-term dividend policy.

MTN has announced a new strategy, called Ambition 2025, to accelerate growth and unlock the value of its infrastructure assets and platforms. Program is spearheaded by CEO Mupita, who was previously group chief financial officer. He replaced Rob Shuter , who  has taken a senior role at the UK’s BT Group.

In 2020, the group added 19 million data users and almost 12 million MoMo (mobile money) users, Now the total number of users is over 114 million and 46 million respectively. Capital expenditure was R28.6-billion and the net debt was reduced by R12-billion, to R43-billion. The group is in the process of structurally separating the infrastructure assets and platforms, such as fintech, to attract third-party capital and partnerships into these businesses, over the medium term”