Vodafone Ghana’s Chief Executive Officer has said that the company plans to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and go public after restructuring its loans.
Vodafone Ghana was discussing restructuring it’s debts with the Ghanaian government which holds a 30 percent stake in the company, according to CEO Yolanda Zoleka Cuba.
“There has been some movement now and the government has shown commitment with resolving the debt.
“They have given us a letter of undertaking around the restructuring of the company’s debt and that’s where we are now,” Cuba said to Reuters.
The telecommunications giant in 2008, acquired a 70 percent share in state-owned Ghana Telecom for $900 million while the government held the remaining 30 percent which at that time, was valued at about $1.3 billion.
Vodafone said that by neglecting to uphold its financial obligations as a minority holder, the West African country hindered the company’s plans to return the business to profit after an additional $1.2 billion investment.
Despite not turning in profit since the acquisition, Cuba said the company has grown and invested “significantly” to modernise its services, including the launch of a nationwide fibre optic network.
MTN Ghana has already listed on the GSE, having launched an Initial Public Offering (IPO) last month as part of MTN’s 4G LTE license requirement, in which the company had to sell 35% of its shares to Ghanaians by June 2018.
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is when shares of a private company are sold to the general public; retail (individual) investors and institutional investors such as banks, insurance firms and pension funds.
Vodafone is the third largest mobile network in Ghana with around nine million subscribers after South Africa’s MTN and AirtelTigo, a merger of Millicom International Cellular’s Tigo and India’s Bharti-Airtel.
Others are Globacom of Nigeria and Sudan’s Sudatel Expresso.
By: ClaraDoku/techvoiceafrica.com
