MTN's Black-Empowerment Share Sale Oversubscribed
MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest cellphone-network operator, said Thursday it raised about 2.8 billion rand ($403.2 million) in an oversubscribed offering of shares to black South Africans.
The Johannesburg-based company had invited individuals and groups in the country, those who had been discriminated against during apartheid rule, to subscribe for 1.6 billion rand in shares as part of a black economic-empowerment scheme. The offer was more than 1.7 times oversubscribed, with more than 124,000 applicants from across the country, it said.
“The goal of MTN was to create a truly broad-based empowerment transaction that would allow ordinary qualifying South Africans to become shareholders in MTN,” said Phuthuma Nhleko, president and chief executive of the company. He said the Zakhele offer gave priority to individuals applying for shares.
