South Africa’s MTN Group has set aside about N120billion ($600 million) to cover the potential settlement of a fine in Nigeria, it said on Thursday.
This was just as the company posted a more than 50 per cent drop in annual profit.
Executive Chairman of MTN Group, South Africa, Phuthuma Nhleko, also said the company may list its Nigerian unit on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Africa’s biggest wireless phone company is in talks with Nigerian authorities to reduce a N780billion ($3.9) billion fine imposed last year for failing to cut off unregistered SIM card users.
MTN said headline Earnings Per Share (EPS) came in at 746 cents in the year to end-December compared with 1,536 cents a year earlier.
Headline EPS is the main profit measure in South Africa that strips out certain one off items.
The company raised its annual dividend by 5.2 per cent to 1,310 cents per share.
Nhleko said on Thursday in Johannesburg that the listing on the NSE would take place in Lagos once the company resolved the fine imposed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) when it was discovered that MTN failed to cut off unregistered SIM card users on its network.
