MOBILE OPERATOR
Director’s share sales added to MTN’s woes
The slide in MTN’s shares last week to the weakest level in more than a decade was compounded by forced selling by a director because of a financial instrument he took with a bank in 2009, the mobile operator said in a stock exchange filing. MTN’s share price has plummeted more than 30% in the past two weeks. The sell-off accelerated on August 29 after Nigerian authorities demanded the company return as much as $8.1bn, which it is accused of moving out of the country illegally. The share price decline forced group chief human resources officer Paul Norman to offload R14.8m worth of stock at a volume-weighted average price of R73.62. The shares were sold on Wednesday. MTN closed at R74.76 on Friday, down from R109.66 on August 28. MTN’s latest trouble in Nigeria prompted some investors to question the wisdom of investing in Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria’s authorities courted further controversy last week when the central bank summarily deducted R75m from Standard Bank’s loc...
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