(Alliance News) - Shares in Airtel Africa PLC fell nearly 10% early Tuesday, after two major shareholders sold shares.
Citigroup Global Markets Ltd said it placed 58 million shares of Airtel Africa, a 1.5% stake, on behalf of shareholders Warburg Pincus LLC and Morningstar Investment Pte Ltd. The planned sale was first announced after the market close on Monday. The amount sold was 9% more than the 53 million initially targetted.
The shares were sold at 140 pence each, raising GBP81.2 million. Airtel Africa won't receive any proceeds of the sale, as it was of existing shares. The stock, a recent addition to the FTSE 100, was down 9.8% at 139.80p early Tuesday in London - the worst performer.
Citigroup didn't say how many Airtel Africa shares the two sellers have remaining, but noted they have agreed to a 90-day lock-up period for any they own. Warburg Pincus had a 5.0% stake prior to the sale, according to morningstar.co.uk. Warburg Pincus is a New York-based private equity firm, while Morningstar Investment is Singapore based.
Airtel Africa provides telecommunications and mobile money services in Nigeria, East Africa and Francophone Africa. On Friday last week, the company said profit and revenue saw substantial growth over the first nine months of its financial year, amid a boost to its customer base.
Pretax profit in the nine months that ended December 31 surged 79% year-on-year to USD864 million from USD482 million. It grew by 49% in the third quarter alone to USD297 million from USD200 million. Revenue rose 22% in the nine-month period to USD3.49 billion from USD2.87 billion in the same period of financial 2021.
By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
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Airtel Africa (AAF)