{"id":11285,"date":"2017-03-02T13:34:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T12:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/?p=11285"},"modified":"2017-03-02T13:34:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T12:34:35","slug":"mtn-swings-to-first-annual-loss-in-20-years-after-nigeria-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/mtn-swings-to-first-annual-loss-in-20-years-after-nigeria-fine\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN Swings to First Annual Loss in 20 years After Nigeria Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"

* MTN’s 2016 earnings hit by $1.1 bn Nigeria fine<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>* Firm facing another probe by Nigerian lawmakers<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>* Declares dividend despite loss, shares up 10 pct<\/span><\/p>\n

MTN Group swung to its first annual loss in two decades on Thursday, hit by a regulatory fine in Nigeria and unfavourable currency moves but its shares soared after it kept a dividend.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>MTN agreed to pay a fine of 330 billion naira ($1.1 billion), reduced from $5.2 billion, in June last year after a prolonged legal battle to end a dispute in Nigeria over missing a deadline to cut off unregistered SIM cards.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The fine by Nigeria, MTN’s most lucrative but increasingly problematic market, wiped 10.5 billion rand ($768 million) – 500 cents per share – from the firms 2016 headline earnings, South Africa’s main measure of profit.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>But MTN shares rose nearly 10 percent after the mobile network operator said it would pay a total dividend of 700 cents a share despite the loss, compared with 1,310 in 2015.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

MTN also said it expects to keep it at 700 cents in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>“They indicated that they will sustain a dividend of 700 cents, which investors see as a positive,” Avior Capital Markets trader Mark Hodgson told Reuters.<\/span><\/p>

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Advertisement<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

<\/span>MTN said its headline loss came in at 1.4 billion rand ($108 million), or 77 cents per share last year, with headline earnings of 13.6 billion rand, or 746 cents per share, in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>MTN woes in Africa’s most populous nation and biggest economy still persist, with the company facing an investigation by Nigerian lawmakers for allegedly illegally repatriating $14 billion between 2006 and 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>MTN has denied any wrongdoing.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Founded with Pretoria’s help after the end of white rule in 1994, MTN is seen as one of post-apartheid South Africa’s biggest commercial successes but clashes with regulators in recent years have exposed governance issues and hobbled growth.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>MTN, which has operations in Iran, said it expects to add 8.3 million new users in the 2017 financial year, a document handed out at its results presentation showed.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The firm said its total subscribers increased by 3.3 percent or 7.7 million to 240 million in the year to end-December.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* MTN’s 2016 earnings hit by $1.1 bn Nigeria fine * Firm facing another probe by Nigerian lawmakers * Declares dividend despite loss, shares up 10 pct MTN Group swung to its first annual loss in two decades on Thursday, hit by a regulatory fine in Nigeria and unfavourable currency moves but its shares soared …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[647],"coauthors":[2392,2393],"class_list":["post-11285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news","tag-mtn"],"yoast_head":"\nMTN Swings to First Annual Loss in 20 years After Nigeria Fine - National Wire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalwire.com.ng\/sub\/mtn-swings-to-first-annual-loss-in-20-years-after-nigeria-fine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MTN Swings to First Annual Loss in 20 years After Nigeria Fine - 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