The buying interest in Airtel Africa has underpinned the equity market, propelling the NGEX ASI index to positive region for the first time in several months as investors reacted positively to the telecom giants’ offer to buy out minority shareholders in Nigeria.
The All-Share Index rose 1.2 percent to 40,716.66 points as of October 5, 2021, while it has year to date gains of 1.1 percent, with a market capitalization of N21.22 trillion.
It should be noted that market performance was also spearheaded by gains in heavyweight stock – FBNH (+9.76%), ETI (+5.56%), UBA (+4.61%), ACCESS (+2.73%), GTCO (+1.42%) and FIDELITY (+2.86%).
There was bargain hunting in the banking sector while the oil and gas index has a year to date of 63.03 percent as the agreement of an output cut by OPEC + members at their last meeting continues to spur crude oil prices.
The market is reacting to the strategic plans of Airtel Africa and they are sanguine that the company is poised to take advantage of the country’s rising population that craves for data usage.
The company has announced that its subsidiary Airtel Networks Limited (Airtel Nigeria), has initiated a process to buy back the 8.27 percent minority shareholdings at an offer price of N 55.81 per share.
This represents an open offer to all shareholders, according to Airtel, which said further announcements will be made in due course.