MTN approves GH₵615 million dividend for shareholders

Telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana (Scancom PLC), has declared the sum of GH₵615 million as dividend for its shareholders, following the confirmation of GH¢0.05 per share.

It brings the total dividend for 2020 to GH¢0.08 per share, comprised of an interim dividend of GH¢0.03 per share paid on May 29, 2020, and the payment of a final dividend of GH¢ 0.05 per share for the 2020 financial year.

The dividend, which accounted for 47.3% of the company’s total profit for last year, was, announced at the third Annual General Meeting (AGM) since becoming a publicly listed company.

The 2020 dividend payment showed an increase of 33.3% per share over that of 2019.

It is expected to be paid on Friday, June 4, 2021, to all registered shareholders who were in the books of Scancom PLC at the close of business on Friday, 14 May 2021, the company says.

The company also recorded total revenue of GH¢6.03 billion, an increase of 16.4% from 2019, which resulted in a profit after tax growth of 33.9%, the annual report of MTN stated.

Addressing the shareholders at the AGM, the Board Chairman of MTN Ghana, Ishmael Yamson, said the company’s share price experienced much volatility.

It started with a year high of 0.70 pesewas and a low of 0.55 pesewas, as it opened the year at 0.70 pesewas and closed the year at 0.64 pesewas, losing 8.57% in effect.

He said, “This was a result of factors including COVID-19 impact on liquidity, general investor sentiments and sell downs from some of our large institutional investors.”

Mr Yamson, however, explained that those factors were not peculiar to MTN as the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) Composite declined by 14.0% and Financial indices, 11.7% during the period.

The Board Chairman noted that the company continued to be the third-largest listed company by market capitalisation of GH¢7.9 billion as at the close of 2020 and remained the most traded stock on the bourse, accounting for about 84.8 per cent of stock market turnover last year, despite the instability on the capital market.

Providing details on revenue, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Ghana, Mr Selorm Adadevoh stated that, its service revenue grew by 16.4% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, which he said was driven by growth in voice, data and Mobile Money (MoMo) transactions.

“Growth in voice revenue (up 8.1 per cent YoY) was supported by a 23.4 per cent increase in our subscriber base from enhancements to our network as well as various customer value management initiatives, which helped manage churn and improve usage,” Mr Adadevoh.

While remarking that the extended impact of the pandemic would shape 2021, he said, “As a business, we remain focused on our people, our customers and on supporting government through the provision of a resilient network to support growth in economic productivity.”

2020 performance

Service revenue went up by 16.4% as subscribers also increased by 23.4% to 24.4 million to firm their grip on the largest share of users in Ghana.

Active data subscribers soared by 32.4% to 10.8 million, just as active Mobile Money (MoMo) users rose by 16.3% to 10.6 million.

The firm paid over GH¢1 billion in taxes to the government.

“We will remain within our service revenue growth target band of 13% to 15% and employ prudent cost strategies to continue to improve our margins and further ensure growth in our bottom line,” MTN Ghana stated in its audited reports for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Future plans

MTN Group said it remains committed to its agreement with the Government of Ghana to sell down a further 12.5% of its investment in Scancom PLC, focusing on local shareholding.

This will increase to 25% other shareholdings in Scancom PLC.

In accordance with the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 (Act 987), MobileMoney Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Scancom PLC, is required to localise 30% of its shareholding as part of Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) licence requirements.

The BoG has extended the deadline to 15 January 2022 to meet this requirement.