The company said its board would find a new CEO during the year to enable a seamless handover. – MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network by subscribers, 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 31 December 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 R14 billion from asset sales within the first 12 months of its three-year R15 billion 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.
In other news – Cassper Nyovest always wears Condom, he don’t want to risk it
Mzansi is considered to have one of the highest HIV rates and Cassper Nyovest has advised Mzansi about the importance of protection.
The rapper touched on the topic on Twitter after admiring a picture of a couple who had welcomed their newborn, saying, “Sbwl Sbwl”. continue reading
Source: EWN
