MTN lastly exits Guinea, sells enterprise to the Guinean authorities 

MTN Group stated it has concluded the sale of its Guinea operations to the State of Guinea, marking its last exit from the market.

Based on a press release from the Group, the sale was concluded on December 30, 2024.

MTN stated the transaction aligns with its give attention to portfolio optimization and simplification, as a part of the Ambition 2025 technique.

Commenting on the sale of the enterprise, MTN Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita, said:

“This milestone marks a brand new section for MTN Guinea-Conakry beneath native possession, and MTN thanks the workers, prospects, regulators and broader stakeholders in Guinea for the help through the time MTN has been operational within the nation.  

“Concluding this transaction is consistent with the technique to simplify the portfolio and allocating capital to markets the place we will make a distinction as MTN and ship long-term development and returns.” 

Why MTN exited Guinea 

The choice to exit the Guinea market stems from MTN’s evaluation of portfolio match inside its danger administration framework.

Chatting with the media in Johannesburg in August 2024, Mupita defined the group’s rationale for disposing of operations in Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau.

“Given our danger administration framework and the issues we want, some markets are very troublesome. We’re not one of the best homeowners of these companies as a result of they’re subscale or they’re small, and they aren’t going to have the ability to fund their very own development,” Mupita shared in remarks reported by Connecting Africa.

• He elaborated that the group evaluates every market’s capability to fund its personal development sustainably.
• Based on him, the second a enterprise sustainably can not fund its personal development for no matter purpose, “we now have to evaluate portfolio match—sure or no.”
• He famous that they have been troublesome selections to make as a result of “they contain colleagues, however they’re essential all the identical.”
• For Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau, the group decided that even with vital development in income or income, MTN was not one of the best proprietor of those operations.

“We checked out them and stated, even when they triple their income or their income, are we one of the best homeowners of those companies? And the reply was no, so we stated let’s have interaction with third events,” Mupita said.

What you must know 

In its full 12 months for 2023 launched in March 2024, the group confirmed it had signed a sale and buy settlement with Pan-African operator, Telecel, for a consideration of US$1 for every of its operations in Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau.

“MTN and Telecel entered right into a share buy settlement for the acquisition of MTN’s fairness pursuits in MTN Guinea-Bissau and MTN Guinea-Conakry.  

“The settlement was reached in December 2023 and is topic to a variety of situations precedent,” the corporate had said.

• Each the Guinea companies have been in web legal responsibility positions and Telecel was to select up these web liabilities as they take over.
• Nonetheless, in its half 12 months outcomes launched in August 2024, MTN confirmed that Guinea-Bissau operation had been offered to Telecel Group, leaving Guinea Conakry.