NSE Grants Airtel Waiver, Now To List ON Local Bourse On Tuesday

Again, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has shifted the planned listing of the shares of Airtel Africa on the local bourse to Tuesday, July 9, as the Exchange granted the telecoms firm’s waiver over its inability to meet the listing requirement stipulated in its rules.

Airtel shares worth 3,758,151,504 ordinary shares at 363 naira per share was initially planned to be listed on Friday but was postponed by the NSE due to the inability of the telecoms firm to obtain regulatory approval.
However, shortly after, sources closed to the telecoms firm confirmed to GFD that the shares would be listed on Monday, July 8, having obtained a waiver from the NSE.
The authority of the NSE granted the telecoms firm waiver to list its shares on the exchange without meeting the minimum requirement of 300 shareholders as of the day the listing was approved by the national council of the Exchange.
The Exchange said its cross-border listing requirements rule grants it the powers to give exemption or waivers, even as the rule was developed to attract such listing to the exchange.
It, however, noted that the stock of Airtel would be marked as Below Listing Standard (BLS) because they could not meet the requirement presently, adding that by the time the retail investors increase patronage on the shares, they would eventually meet the requirement and the BLS mark would be removed from the stock.
With the planned listing, Airtel will become the second telecoms firm to be listed on the domestic bourse after South Africa's local unit MTN Nigeria listing in May.
Airtel will be adding a total of 1.364 trillion naira to the market capitalisation of the NSE, which currently stood at 12.902 trillion naira.