Airtel Africa Valued at N8.1trn amidst Capital Reduction Plan
Dual-listed telecom company Airtel Africa Plc’s 3.758 billion shares outstanding on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) were priced at N8.105 trillion as the telecom company announced a plan to cancel purchased shares from its latest buyback program.
Maintaining its position as the most valuable listed brand on the NGX, Airtel Africa’s share price of N2156.9 has refused to budge in months despite significant earnings growth in the first quarter of 2025 due to thin activity in the Nigerian market.
The telecom giant with a presence in 14 African countries has continued to buy back its own shares from the London Stock Exchange amidst low transactions in the Nigerian market. Its share price has not changed in months.
According to data from the local bourse, Airtel Africa’s share price settled at N2156.90 on Friday, tracking moderately below the 52-week high of N2200 on the exchange. Airtel launched the second tranche of its share buy-back programme which is expected to run for six months following the completion of the first tranche of the Programme.
It said the second tranche of the share buyback will amount to a maximum of $55 million and is anticipated to end on or before 19 November 2025.
“The company has entered into an agreement with Barclays Capital Securities Limited to conduct the second tranche of the buy-back and carry out on-market purchases of its ordinary shares, with the company subsequently purchasing its ordinary shares from Barclays”, Airtel said.
Under this agreement, Airtel Africa said Barclays will act as a riskless principal and will make decisions independently of the company. The sole purpose of the buy-back programme is to reduce the capital of the Company.
Airtel told the regulator that all shares purchased under the buy-back programme will be cancelled. Any purchases of ordinary shares under the buy-back programme will be carried out in accordance with certain pre-set parameters set out in the agreement with Barclays.
At the annual general meeting on 3 July 2024, shareholders gave the company authority to purchase a maximum of 374,141,187 ordinary shares, and following the completion of the previous buyback, the remaining authority amounts to a maximum of 302,567,123 ordinary shares.
“Following the purchase of these ordinary shares, the remaining ordinary shares of US dollar 0.50 each in issue will be 3,670,136,977, including 7,489,044 treasury shares”, the company said in its filing on the Nigerian Exchange.
Accordingly, the total number of voting rights in the company is 3,662,647,933.
Since the commencement of the first tranche of the $100 million share buy-back programme announced on 23 December 2024, the company has purchased 26,668,771 ordinary shares in aggregate at a volume-weighted average price of 135.6592 Great Britain pounds per ordinary share. #Airtel Africa Valued at N8.1trn amidst Capital Reduction Plan MTN Nigeria Net Loss Grows by 192% to N400 billion
