MTN released a trading update yesterday afternoon that the market received well, the company has unfortunately been impacted by something outside of their control, the falling oil price. MTN does not produce oil, two of their major operations happen to fall in countries that do produce oil however, with government spend expected to be far lower than in prior years and in many cases the government is a big employer. Markets can respond to markets, governments are less nimble, they have different agendas. Back to the trading update, which looked ahead of market consensus: MTN expects an increase of between 5% and 15% (equating to a range of between 1482 cents and 1623 cents) in headline earnings per share ("HEPS") and an increase of between 15% and 25% (equating to a range of between 1679 cents and 1825 cents) in attributable earnings per a share ("EPS")
Why the variance? EPS for the 2014 financial year was positively impacted by the transaction whereby the MTN Nigeria's passive infrastructure was transferred to an associate. MTN Group has retained a 51% interest in the newly created entity and MTN Nigeria will lease-back the towers for its operations. Results themselves will be released for the full year to end December on the 4th of March, which is not next Wednesday, rather the Wednesday after that. Two weeks. In the middle of that range, HEPS is anticipated to be 1552.