As NSE explains concerns about non-availability of MTN shares
The executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta said on Tuesday that MTN Nigeria Communications Limited had paid N235bn out of the N330 billion fine the commission imposed on the mobile telecommunications operator in August 2015.
Danbatta who disclosed this in an interview with journalists in Abuja said with the listing of the telecommunications operators on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Nigerians now have the opportunity to own part of the company’s shares.
“We have succeeded in empowering Nigerians to own, control and manage one of the dominant telecommunications companies in the country by MTN listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
“This is arising from the settlement agreement reached with MTN through the payment of N330bn to the government coffers of which they have paid N235bn thereby remaining the last tranche.
“MTN has been listed on the NSE and Nigerians can now buy shares and through this Nigerians will be financially empowered and socially transformed,” he said.
It would be recalled that NCC fined the company N1.04 trillion in October 2015 for irregular registration of 5.2 million subscribers.
However, after prolonged negotiation with NCC, the federal government and its South African counterpart, the fine was reduced to reduced to N330 billion.
Meanwhile, NSE has explained the concerns about the non-availability of shares of telecommunications company’s shares in the secondary market.
A statement issued by the NSE on Tuesday reads: “Attention has been drawn to a few critical issues raised in various print and social media platforms regarding the listing of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (MTN Nigeria) on the Premium Board of the Exchange. As an Exchange that is committed to operating a fair, orderly and transparent market, we deem it important to clarify these issues.
“Where a company lists following an Initial Public Offering, shares are expected to be available for trading on the day of listing. In a Listing by Introduction, however, no shares have been offered for subscription by the company prior to listing. Thus, without any intervention, it is possible that there will be no shares available for trading on the listing date.
Indeed, currently, no rule of the Exchange compels shareholders in a listed company to tender their shares for trading. Shareholders are at liberty to trade their shares at any time and price suitable to them.
‘Thus, in order to stimulate trading in the shares of companies that List by Introduction, the NSE’s practice is to urge the company to make shares available on the day of listing. In the case of MTN Nigeria, the NSE had requested the Company as part of the listing process to make shares available and the Exchange expects the company to do that,” it said.
It added: “Since the listing of MTN Nigeria on Thursday, May 16, 2019, a total of 105,301,759 shares valued at N12, 231,997,316 have traded in three (3) days. These trades were carried out by ten (10) Dealing Member Firms in 134 cross deals/negotiated deals.
“According to the Rulebook of The Exchange, when a Dealing Member or Authorized Clerk has an order to buy and an order to sell the same security at the same price, the Dealing Member or Authorized Clerk may “cross” those orders at a price at or within The Exchange’s best bid or offer.
“A variant of this is the negotiated deal, which describes a situation where a cross deal is executed between two Dealing Member Firms at a price which may be within the Exchange’s best bid or offer or with the approval of the Exchange, outside the best bid or offer. Because cross deals involve clients of the same Dealing Member Firm on both sides of a trade, significant issues have been raised that Dealing Members who have not been involved in the cross deals have been unable to trade on behalf of their clients.
The Exchange is not unconcerned about this state of affairs. Indeed, Council members of the Exchange urged brokers to discuss with their clients about possible sales of shares.
“As an Exchange that champions transparency and equity for all stakeholders in our market, we have received stakeholder feedback concerning our present rules on cross dealing and will consider the issues raised as part of our sustained efforts to ensure our market remains equitable for all stakeholders. We believe in market forces as the most efficient methodology for price discovery. Demand and supply will interact to discover appropriate prices as trading activities continue in the market.
“There appears to be a misconception that a concession was given to MTN Nigeria on the minimum free float required for companies listed on the Exchange.
According to Rulebook of The Exchange, free float is defined as the number of shares that an Issuer has outstanding and available to be traded on The Exchange. It includes all shares held by the investing public, and excludes shares held directly or indirectly by promoters, directors and their close relatives; strategic investors holding five percent (5%) and above of the issued share capital; or government.
“The Exchange’s rules for listing on the Premium Board (which is the board in which MTN Nigeria is listed) require a Company to have a minimum free float of twenty percent of its issued share capital or that the value of its free float is equal to or above N40 billion on the date The Exchange receives the Issuer’s application to list. MTN Nigeria met with the free float requirement of N40 billion.
“The free float of MTN at the time of listing was in excess of N90 billion. Investor protection is very important to us at The Exchange and we have taken necessary steps to ensure that our market is fair and orderly.
“In 2016, we acquired NASDAQ’s SMARTS platform to proactively detect and deter manipulative tendencies, gather intelligence and execute risk based supervision of flagged participants.
“We have also implemented other initiatives aimed at providing investors with timely information on the compliance status of our Dealing Members and Issuers including Broker Trax, our member compliance report, and Compliance Status Indicator (CSI) codes (for Issuers).
“In addition, we have institutionalized our investor education program and launched X-Academy in June 2017, because we have identified investor education as a veritable tool to galvanizing informed investments and necessary step towards protecting investors in our market.
“Whilst we believe we have addressed the concerns raised, we will like to assure our stakeholders and the general public that The Exchange will continue to uphold global best practices in its business operations and will sustain engagement with its stakeholders to continually develop regulatory frameworks that ensure our market completely reflects our values of ambition, fairness and inclusion.”
