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MTN Group CEO to step down

MTN Group Ltd, said on Wednesday Chief Executive Officer Rob Shuter would step down from his role at the end of a four-year term in March 2021.

The company said its board would find a new CEO during the
year to enable a seamless handover.

Shuter, a former head of Vodafone Europe with a background
in banking, took over from Sifiso Dabengwa in 2017, who resigned after Nigeria
imposed a $1.7 billion penalty on the company for its failure to deactivate
unregistered users.

During his tenure, Shuter overhauled the telecom firm’s
governance standards and is in the middle of a strategic revamp of MTN to hunt
for returns in everything from financial services, music to video games.

The company also said headline earnings per share (HEPS)
rose 38.9% to 468 cents for the full-year ended Dec. 31 on the IFRS 16
accounting basis. On a like-for-like IAS 17 accounting basis, HEPS rose 61.7%.

Revenue rose by 9.7%, while service revenue grew by 9.8%.

“The group’s results were supported by double-digit growth
in service revenue by both MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana, while economic pressure,
new data usage rules and a reassessment of recognition criteria for roaming
revenue from Cell C impacted our performance in South Africa,” Shuter said in a
statement.

MTN, which competes with rival Vodacom Group, said it raised
14 billion rand ($876.70 million) from asset sales within the first 12 months
of its three-year 15 billion rand divestment plan aimed at simplifying its
portfolio.

The company said it currently does not anticipate a material
impact on its near-term network rollout plans due to the coronavirus outbreak
and was developing contingency plans to mitigate the impact.

Shuter said on a media conference call that due to the
outbreak MTN had restricted non-essential travel a few weeks ago to some
countries, including Iran, where it has operations.

“We don’t really want people travelling in and out unless
there is an absolute emergency,” Shuter said.

 

Source: Myjoyonline.com

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