Yesterday he said something that allowed MTN shareholders to breath a sigh of relief

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a central banker governor that the Nigerians, and indeed us Africans can be very proud of. A slight man, but a fellow who when he talks commands a room, and a television audience. There are some people when they talk, we switch and listen. Quality, you should check out web footage, you will see what I mean. Yesterday he said something that allowed MTN shareholders to breath a sigh of relief, Nigeria would not look to devalue their currency. Remember that the Niara airtime sales are converted to US Dollars for the purpose of reporting and then back to Rands. So it is important that the Rand remains pretty steady to the US Dollar.



Staying with MTN, the Zakhele share offer to black investors has been oversubscribed, which is awesome. It is complicated, something that I have followed quite closely over the weeks, the SABC called me up and said, can we have an interview, I said "yes" and they arranged a time to meet, and then they never arrived....... OK, they did invite me back at some stage, but so far nothing. Hmmmm....



So I had done my homework, it is complicated, but then I thought so are the crazy deals that CEO Phuthuma Nhleko (an investment banking background helps a lot!!!) has done, the complexity thereof, I was not surprised that this was no different. Basically the discount was twofold, one that MTN had injected some serious money into the scheme to fund it, and there was a set price of the sale of MTN shares from an existing shareholder. The MTN website explains it pretty well, in a whoile lot less detail than the over 100 page prospectus did: MTN announces an R8.1 billion BEE transaction.



The best thing about the oversubscription (1.7 times) is that 124 thousand individuals participated. No doubt when allotting the shares, the scheme will allot bottom up, so that everyone gets their minimum subscription, and then work up. Although the suggestion is that preference would be given to those who have registered their Sim cards. An excellent example in these big ticket companies (and this is a relatively new one) of spreading the shareholding around.