Airtel Africa is one of the major telecommunications players in the African continent. They are present in 15 Africa countries that includes Kenya and apparently they want to IPO.
According to Financial Times, Airtel Africa is eyeing a valuation of upto £3.6bn as it pushes ahead with an IPO listing in London.
They have set a price range for the IPO between 80p and 100p. This implies a market capitalization of between £3.007bn (Kshs 384 billion) to £3.623 billion (Kshs 463 billion). In comparison, Safaricom’s current market capitalization is Kshs 1.089 trillion (£8.5 billion).
They are planning to float between 595.2 million to 744 million new shares which will raise £595 million (Kshs 76 billion). Apparently 25% of the stock is expected to be floated immediately following the IPO. Shares are to begin trading on June 28th, which is 10 days from now.
“We have built Airtel Africa into the second largest mobile operator in Africa and our clear strategy and efficient business model makes us well positioned to capture the growth opportunities across our markets, in voice, data and mobile money,” Airtel Africa’s Chief Executive, Raghunath Mandava was quoted as saying.
Airtel Africa is huge in the continent. It is present in 15 countries which includes Chad, DRC, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Congo, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
It is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel from India and it was formed after Bharti bought Zain Africa’s mobile operations in June 2010. As of March 2018, they have 89.3 million subscribers in the continent. They are second to the MTN group who are present in over 20 countries and have over 232 million subscribers as of 2016.
