The Board Chairman of Scancom PLC, popularly known as MTN Ghana, has said that the market value of the company’s outstanding shares now stands at 8.6 billion cedis making it the third largest company on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
Dr Ishmael Yamson let this out during the company’s second annual general meeting held virtually on 13 August 2020.
“At the close of 2019 Scancom PLC had a market capitalization of 8.6 billion Ghana cedis, making it the third largest listed company on the Ghana stock exchange.”
He explained that, the improvement of the company’s shares is as a result of some effective measures implemented by the firm.
“The increase profitable performance is anchored in strong service revenue growth, coupled with successful execution of our cost efficient strategies.”
These measures also reduced the cost at which the company was doing business. According to Mr Yamson this boosted the company’s overall financial performance.
“Our operating cost went down by 3 percent on the back of various cost efficient initiatives which impacted positively on our cost base and efficiency levels in 2019. The improvement led to a reported EBITDA growth of 65.7 percent year on year. With a year on year EBITDA margin at… 13.1 percentage points to 50.8 percent.”
However, in terms of year-to-date performance, AFRICAN ’XCHANGES indicates MTN is ranked at 30th on the GSE.
The website points out that, the current share price of MTN Ghana is GHS 0.58.
“The MTNGH stock closed its last trading day (Thursday, August 13, 2020) at 0.58 GHS per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange. MTNGH began the year with a share price of 0.70 GHS but has since lost 17.14% off that price valuation.”
On 5th September, 2018, MTN enlisted on the GSE. The country’s biggest mobile telecommunications company offered 35 percent of its issued shares in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in fulfilment to a requirement set by the National Communication Authority (NCA) in 2015 for awarding MTN a 4G spectrum for the provision of internet access services at a license acquisition cost of $67.5 million.
Prior to this listing, there was a lot of anticipation from both institutional and retail equity investors alike in the country. This was because, the listing was touted as possibly the most attractive investment opportunity that will become available to the Ghanaian public in 2018.
MTN also announced the payment of a final dividend of 0.04 pesewas per share to its shareholders for the 2019 financial year.
According to MTN, this brings the total dividend for the full year to 0.06 pesewas per share and it’s subject to the appropriate taxes.
According to the Board Chairman, the company delivered a strong profit after tax growth of 33.6 percent year on year to 1.01 billion cedis as at December last year.
“Against this background, your company delivered a strong profit after tax growth 33.6 percent year on year to 1 billion Ghana cedis as at December 2019.”