#360Mentor is a continuation of the #40DayMentor series. In this episode, Robert Kabushenga (RK) speaks to Wim Vanhelleputte (WV) & Anne Juuko (AJ) on MTN Uganda IPO

RK: It’s an absolute pleasure to have you Wim on #360Mentor. How are you, Wim?

WV: Very well. Glad to be here.

RK: In case you are wondering who Wim is, he is the CEO of MTN Uganda. Today we are going to be talking about  the MTN IPO.

When the announcement came out last week on Tuesday, my wife who is out of town saw the video and shared it with me immediately with an instruction: we must buy. I have one question for you; why must we buy?

WV: Thanks Robert. That’s a question. Let me take this step by step. Let me start by painting the picture about investing in shares. I am not an expert and I don’t want to be seen as one but I guess it’s important for all of us here to be on the same page. 

Investing in shares in general goes with a certain risk. Investing in the stock exchange is not risk free. There are different categories or levels of investment. It is known that investing in shares is relatively high risk compared to other risks or investment channels that are available.

Having said that, what you are doing when you are buying shares is that you are buying into the future of that company. You are not buying into the past. I can come and tell you how wonderful MTN has been for the last 23 years, that’s very nice but when you’re buying a share, especially when it comes to the Initial Public Offer (IPO), you are buying into the future of the company. When you buy a share, you believe and are convinced that the future is looking bright for that company because you’re counting that the performance of the company in 2,3 or 10 years from now is going to be better than the performance the company is showing today. Because you are buying into the future.

RK: The future promise.

WV: Yes. The future promise. The prospects. The future outlook of the business. That is what should convince you as an investor to buy shares.

Let’s talk about MTN Uganda and its future.

RK: Hold on a moment, Wim. I want us to be very clear to everybody. Just for clarity, repeat that.

WV: You are investing today for the future prospects, expectation of the business is going to perform 5 or 10 years from now. That is what you are buying into, the future performance of the company.

RK: Okay, there is an argument I would like us to settle. Clarify for us, what are the businesses that MTN is making available for us to be part owners. How are you generating the money now for us to know? People are saying you hived off other businesses, you only brought the voice and so much talk, what are you putting on the table?

WV: The Company that is offering its 20% of its shares to the public is MTN Uganda limited. That company is doing voice, data and mobile money. Yes it is true, because of the National Payment Systems Act (NPSA) we had to create a new company for compliance purposes. The Bank of Uganda requested MTN, just like our competitors, to create a new separate legal entity that is the MTN Mobile Money Company. That company is 100% fully owned by MTN Uganda. When you buy a share in MTN Uganda, you indirectly have the same share in the MTN Mobile Money Company.  I think that created a bit of confusion but it is very clearly defined in the famous prospectus which many of us are now familiar with. The 250 pages where all the disclosures and details of the company are being made. When you buy a share from MTN Uganda Ltd, you also benefit from the MTN Mobile Money business activity.

RK: This is the idiot’s guide to understanding things. I am the idiot here, I just want to be clear;

1.       If I invest in MTN Uganda, I will be earning money from the voice business i.e. people making phone calls and talking to each other.

2.       I will also be earning money from the business of selling data so  that people can spend more time on #360Mentor

3.       I will be earning money from the services of mobile money transactions.

So that is the business we are buying into today?

WV: Yes. Crystal clear. That’s page 75 of the IPO prospectus.

RK: Great. Now that I know what is in the bag, help me understand, Wim, what is the future promise because you stated in your vision that you want to lead a new bold digital world. How is that a business promise that I need to buy into? Why are you so sure that you have a minimum of 10 to 15 years in which you are going to do well?

WV: That’s a very good question Robert. Let us first unplug what is going to drive the future of our prospect MTN Uganda.

First and foremost, we are operating a telecom in Uganda that is running; voice, data and mobile money. Why is it important that I emphasise the point to on Uganda? Uganda today has 45 million people. Our business is a fast moving consumer good. The more consumers there are in the market, the more our business will grow. So who are our consumers? Every Ugandan is a potential consumer of MTN Uganda services either calling or internet or mobile money. We have 15 million customers that are using our services every day.

Out of the 45 million people, 20  million are adults. 25 million are below the age of 18. Uganda has one of the youngest populations in the world.

In 10 years from now, life expectancy will keep going up. Fortunately not many Ugandans will pass in the next 10 years. You and I will be here. The 20 million adults that are in Uganda in 10 years from now will at least be at 35 million. A child who is 12 years today, in ten years, will be 22. In ten years, the adult population of Uganda will have grown from 20 million people to 35 million people.

When you are in the business of consumer goods; telecom, food, mobile money, mobile data, your potential market is directly proportional to the adult market. Let’s just stick to the adults. We are going to be there in the next ten years. With the new licence, MTN Uganda is going to be around at least up to 2032. Just by the nature of the adult population growth, we will grow at least at the same rate as the population.

On top of that, the Ugandan economy is growing. The purchasing power of every Ugandan is going up year after year. It may be slow but it is going up. So you have a growing pie and it is growing thicker.

That is unique for the fact that we are going to be operating in Uganda. If we’re going to operate in another country, the adult population, the GPD, the purchasing power would not be necessarily the same. You know that soon, we are going to overtake Kenya in terms of population.

RK: Yes. We are very busy. We are working very hard at it.

WV: That is because of electricity availability. My point is we have a growing population and a growing purchasing power. As MTN Uganda, we are in the right country, at the right place at the right time.

 RK: You’re saying that because of the service you are providing; it is a highly demanded service, a fast moving consumer good, the size of the market and the capacity to buy guarantees that this is a good market to be in and that if I put my money in your company, my return is there?

WV: Yes. That is what we call organic growth. We don’t have to do much. By being in the market at the right place and at the right time, you benefit from what is called organic growth. It’s like how you throw seeds on your farm and six months later, you come back and find something to harvest. That organic growth. Put that aside now. This applies to MTN as it does to every other business that depends on consumer goods. It applies to all.

 But what is unique to MTN?

·         Voice/calls

·         Data/ internet

·         Mobile Money

That is what we have agreed to work with. 50% of our revenue today is voice. 20% is data and about 26% is mobile money. The 4%, we sell devices, we do some digital services and other small revenues but the three pillars are voice, data and mobile money.

Now two of those three are going to grow significantly over the next two years.

RK: Which ones are those?

WV: Voice is not going to grow very much going forward. Look at us now, we are talking and 1500 people are listening and none of us is paying for this phone call. We are all using data. Over time, the more people are using data, the more we get some kind of a substitution of voice revenue becoming data revenue. The voice revenue is not going to grow much. There’s still some growth. Our country is so amazing, everywhere we build a new tower, we have new customers joining us for the first time and they start by using the network for calling. Not everybody has a smartphone. Only 1/3 of phone owners in Uganda has a smartphone. The other two have not yet started using the data services. The voice service is going to start stagnating but that is not a problem because what we are going to lose in the voice, we are going to recover or even get more because of data consumption. Voice is going to start flattening out, data is going to start kicking in. The result of both is that voice and data are still going to go up significantly. That is what we see everywhere.

If you upgrade someone from 2G, a voice device and give them a smartphone, even if it is something good, we immediately see an uplift in their monthly spending. Once you start using data, Robert, ten years you were not using data. I am sure now, you are one of the big spenders because once you get hooked on data, you just can’t let go. We all go for sessions and have to leave our phones alone. But it is the reality. It makes life easier. You get access to so much information.

Data is going to accelerate because of more consumption and access to smartphones, the data revenues are going to start coming in. When you compare Kenya and Uganda .i.e. Kenya is just 200km from Kampala, today we have 1/3 customers with a smartphone. Just across the border, you have ½.  50% of Kenyan mobile phone users have a smartphone. Why wouldn’t we reach the levels of ½ in the next two or three years? This afternoon, the new minister of ICT tweeted that every Ugandan should have a smartphone. The value of our company has gone up. That shows you that the number one driver is going to be mobile data.

RK: How about mobile money?

WV: That is the hard question. I am very excited that there are a lot of questions around mobile money. (Lost signal for 2 minutes)

The real growth opportunity for mobile money is not just about more customers. It’s about shifting away from the traditional mobile money services. What do we do? 9/10 of mobile money users do the following.

·         You make a deposit

·         You transfer the money to somebody

·         And that somebody makes a withdrawal / cash out of the system.

9/10 of mobile money users do what we call deposit + transfer+ withdrawal.

RK: People love cash.

WV: That is the foundation of mobile money. That is the mobile money we launched in 2010. That is good. It is what has built the business of mobile money. The ease of transfer at almost no cost. That is the foundational block of mobile money but it is not the future of mobile money.

The future of mobile money is new services. Payments. Momo pay. For all of us who have gone to Kenya in the recent past, when it comes to telecom, we are pretty sure whatever is happening to telecom will happen in Uganda in two to three years. In Busia when you cross the border, you will see one thing; lika na mpesa (momo pay). When you compare what is happening in Kenya with momo pay, we are a dwarf. But we are also going to develop momo pay into what lika na mpesa is like in Kenya. Our ambition is to bring momo pay to that level.

And then you can imagine what mobile money will be like. There, we will be talking about the real fintech. Fintech is the advanced mobile money. Payments. The more money keeps in the electronic system. It goes round and round and round. That is where the real growth of mobile money is sitting, not by withdrawing money out of the system. We make money when people withdraw money but that is bad revenue. The good revenue for us that we will make will be out of memo pay and mokasah. That is the fintech; the mobile money of the future.

RK: Wim, you sound more confident that you will take this service to that level, what are you doing now that will assure me that you will achieve this in the next two to three years?

WV: Robert, sometimes, the right business decision is to be humble. Sometimes it is very easy to make difficult things look easy. Let me give you a secret of mobile money. Go and cross into the border and go to Kisumu, Nairobi, the future is already there. Sometimes, you need to copy with pride. That is what we call it in business. Don’t reinvent anything. Of course we need to adapt but the solutions that are relevant in Kenya are not necessarily relevant in Uganda.  But the principle will always remain the same. Use it but don’t reinvent it for your own good.   You always try to copy and make it better than the original. But when I talk of mobile money we are privileged to know what the future looks like. Our neighbours are leading the way and what we are doing is to get the same and make it better.

Today, we are the leading operator in the world. The number one when it comes to selling airtime through mobile money. Almost 80% of all the airtime we consume. Remember the scratch cards, where are they now? We have a higher rate of selling airtime than SafariCom and Mpesa in Kenya. We copied and made it better.

RK: I have a question for you, Wim, that becomes extremely important for me, you have sold us this dream, what guarantees do we have that you will be in position to deliver what you have promised today five years from now?

WV: Robert, MTN Uganda is not a grocery shop. MTN Uganda is the biggest company in the country. It is not by mistake or coincidence. We protect all minority shareholders; big and small. What will protect your shares is good governance and we have a regulator called UCC when it comes to telecom. We have BOU regulating us when it comes to mobile money. We now have another regulator called the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and the Uganda Stock Exchange (USE). Those guys have put in place the right processes, the right governance processes that MTN Uganda will be managed in the right way and the interests of all the shareholders are taken care of. And that is through governance. There is a board, remuneration committee, and oversight, audits both internal and external. All that is to make sure that a company is governed with the right practice and the right principles, that every body’s share is protected.

I can’t just wake up with Andrew my CFO and say today we are going to do this, there are processes, there are board resolutions, and there are governors. All those are to protect the shareholders.

RK: Wim, you need to come and join me at the farm. For me, when I wake up and I want to plant coffee, that’s what it will be.

WV: It’s not possible where you have governance. And we are very keen. Sometimes I wish we could dodge governance but that is wrong. Governance protects the company and the shareholders. As management, you are supposed to run the company in a certain way that does not allow for diversion.

RK: Wim, I am inclined to ask you this, are you assuring us that your governance structures will guarantee our investments will be safe? I am not doing this for me, I am doing it for my kids, will your governance ensure that my kids don’t lose their shares?

WV: What I can guarantee is that the company will be governed up to the highest standard of best practise. Let’s do a doomsday thinking; if there is a major drought for one year, 365 days without rain are going to be as successful as we thought we were going to be? The country is going to be in a major economic crisis. If we don’t have food, we cannot spend on twitter listening to #360Mentor, so am I in control of the weather? I am not.

There are certain factors, certain external risks that can happen that can of course change the course of the business.

RK: We have been joined by Anne Juuko (AJ), the CEO of Stanbic Bank. Anne, are you there?

AJ: Good evening Robert, yes, I am here.

RK: I love the company I keep. I have the CEO of the leading telecom and the CEO of the largest bank. And I am the CEO of the largest banana plantation. I am pleased to have you. I will be bringing you in a while, let me wind up with Wim.

Wim, there’s lots of fintechs that are emerging on the continent, aren’t those guys going to take you out of business on the financial side? On the data side, we hear noise from big buys like Google, Facebook, Elon Musk. On voice, we have whatsapp and all these voice apps, how are you leveraging yourself against all these?

WV: Very good question Robert. Let’s take them one by one. There is definitely competition that is already there on the fintech side, data and the voice. 

Fintech. It is amazing to see the level of innovation activity including Uganda, we have great minds innovating new products and services especially around the whole fintech space. As MTN, we can try to fight them. We can try to block them. To frustrate them. But the better option is to embrace innovation. Invite them to connect on our platform. To plug into our system. We call it an open API. Our mobile money platform is open for business. Anybody with a great new innovation can plug in the mobile money platform and we both win. We win because our platform becomes more relevant and the innovator wins because he now has access to 9 or soon 15 million mobile money users. You can either compete or embrace, we have chosen to embrace.

RK: Let me bring Anne in. Why are you so sure about this transaction that you are backing it?

AJ: Thank you Robert. Let me start by explaining the role we play in this process. I have received so many questions about it; is it Stanbic? Is it MTN? Why are you sitting next to Wim in every single conversation?

RK: Including this one… hahaha

AJ: Including this one indeed. I can start here. We are the transaction advisor. Our role in this particular conversation is to advise MTN on a step by step process of getting listed. As you know the process of getting listed is not a simple forward move. And as Wim has explained the governance surrounding it in getting listed is a long process we have worked on together.

The second role that we are playing under SBG securities which is also a subsidiary of Stanbic Holdings, is that we are the lead broker of this transaction. So we are also leading on the brokerage part. As you know one of our subsidiaries is Stanbic SBG, we are helping it to sail through. Those are the two roles we are playing and I thought that would be a good place to start.  

The part that makes us so sure about MTN and why we think this is a good transaction, when you look at the investment case for MTN, it looks at different spaces. First there is a track record of performance. They have been in the country since 1998 and if you grow their growth arrow it is a north point arrow. That’s one part, that they have a track record of success. History is not a guarantee of a future success but it is a good place to start. They have done well. They have innovated.  They have been able to move the country forward. If you remember where we were in 1998 and what the telecoms looked like…

RK: Anne, a good number of people listening to us now were not yet born.

AJ: I think we will do a video and show them what a phone looked like at that time. And also discuss with them things like service fee.

RK: Yes. There used to be a service fee, oh my!

AJ: It was 30k per month and you used to line up. They have done a lot of work.

RK: By the way, when I was at campus, you had to go and buy a token and put it in a phone booth and be able to ring your girlfriend. That’s how hard life was.

AJ: Oh! Can you imagine! So they also saved us from paying for phones in the US dollars, remember that time? They have democratised that. Every person with the simplest of means has a phone that they can have. Already that part for me is a really good part of why I think this is a good story.

If you look at   the prospectus, I urge everyone to read it. It tells the story of MTN of the past, the present and the prospects in the future.

RK: Anne very briefly if you can, in what I call the idiot’s guide, can you summarise for us this promise.

AJ: In there, we talk about the prospectus of the future. Where is the growth story for MTN? Look at voice penetration, it is saturated? Maybe not. Look at the data penetration. Wim has eloquently talked about the mobile money story and what it promises to be. If I bring you back to the demographics of the country in which MTN Uganda is operating, we are a very young population and we continue to grow. Every year we add 1.2 Million babies. And every year about 1 million people turn 18. There is growth already at that level. But from a macro point of view, we have enjoyed macro-economic growth in these two past covid years. A GDP growth of average of about 6 to 7% over the last ten years. So there is already growth in the economy. And that is growth that MTN is willing to take advantage of. When you are buying a security, you look at the past performance, you look at where they are now and more importantly you are buying into the future of the country. And when you look around, the prospects of MTN Uganda are very bright.

RK: Wim, let’s talk about these new things 4IR, the internet of things, cloud, are you going to be part of that process, are you going to take us to that world? That’s where the money is going to be.

WV: Let me ask you a question Robert, have you ever been to the cloud?

RK: It depends on which one. There are two clouds and I have been to both. When I was much younger, there used to be a night club in Kampala called Clouds, so yes, I have been to the clouds.

WV: All these things you are talking about require one thing, the internet of things. But how does it work? You need connectivity. You can have a sim card, a chip or whatever in thousands of devices but they need to be connected? Through a wireless network. With 5G, all that is going to happen. But there is one foundation that all these technologies need; connectivity. If you want to break down our business in the simplest form, we are in the business of connectivity. We sell a connection so that you and I can talk. So that we can send a picture to the rest of the world. We are connecting. All these things you are talking about are going to happen. They are happening but they will all need connectivity. They need an underlying infrastructure to enable all those things to happen. We are in the business of providing that infrastructure. There is no cloud computing without a mobile network, without data centres, without data cables. All that infrastructure has to be there. Otherwise all that beautiful cloud you are talking about is not going to happen. Every year we invest over 300 billion in infrastructure. Next year, we are going to invest UGX 1 trillion as infrastructure in the ground.

What is so special about this prospectus is that it takes a lot of money to make a lot of money. Building the infrastructure requires a lot of investment. It requires a lot of financial commitment but if you do not do it, you become irrelevant. The day we stop investing is the day the shareholder should start getting worried.  We are literally building assets in the ground. That is the guarantee that the revenue is going to grow next year. Because that infrastructure is going to generate additional traffic, voice and transaction and I guarantee you will get more revenue in 2022 that you got in 2021 because that additional infrastructure you have put in the ground is generating the revenue that you are expecting. Every year, we are going to invest and invest.

We have an obligation to provide 100% coverage of the entire surface of landmass in Uganda. We still have four years to do that. In the next three years, we are going to build more than a thousand sites to be able to cover Uganda. And it is going to be a profitable venture because the infrastructure we put in is able to make enough revenue and further additional revenue and profits.

So this is a long term venture. This is not just about today. And it requires commitment in terms of infrastructure and all that infrastructure is going to help to have all those applications working which is fine. But we are going to be the infrastructure provider like we have always been for the last 23 years.

 RK: Anne, what are the steps that individuals need to take in order to be part of this engagement? What would you advise? Where can people get sound advice?

AJ: I think the first place to start is to read the prospectus or participate in a conversation like this so that you can make an informed decision. Understand the risks that are involved in an investment of this nature. 

As we know, unlike a treasury bill for example or a fixed deposit where the rate is fixed and you know how much you earn in a certain period, the same is not true for equity investments. You buy into the story but like we explained earlier, the market may move for you or against you.

(Lost connection for a minute)

One of the interesting things about this is that it is an MIPO.  Dial *165*65# and follow prompts to open an SCD account.

RK: What is an SCD account?

AJ: That is the account where your shares are going to be held. It is the central depository account where shares are held in virtual form. Remember in the past, you’d get to the USE of the registrar to give you a copy (like a certificate) to confirm you own x number of shares, we don’t do that anymore. Everything is in virtual form. 

Once you have opened that account, you can follow the process and select a broker. There are several brokers involved in this transaction. Of course we as SBG Securities are the lead mandated broker of this transaction, so I will start there but you can select any broker.

Once you have selected your broker, you will then go ahead to fill in your details; national ID to complete that stage. Once you have finished that, you continue to fill in the amount of money that you want to invest in those shares.

Then you can use your momo pay to credit your SCD and you will have fully subscribed for the shares.

It is important to note that the payment for the shares is upfront. They are not on credit. You must have the cash. You must have the cash at hand to be able to pay for the shares upfront.

RK: Anne, you at Stanbic can lend me the money, I pay for the shares and then we can kwebala, not so?

AJ: I will come back to that.

Let me first finish up the steps.

Once you have completed the steps above, you will get an SMS that will tell you that your subscription has been received and that we get back to you once the allocation process has started.

That is one way of accessing the shares.

The second way is using the Uganda Securities Exchange easy portal where you can follow the prompts and open the SCD account and then be able to pay for the shares.

It is important to note Robert that there is a limit to momo pay up to UGX 5 million per day. If you want to buy more than 5million, you have to do this over a period of time. Or you walk to any of the MTN service centres or Stanbic Bank branches and get all the information you need. All our branches have a stall marked MTN IPO, in there you will fill your application and go to the till, put your cash amount to be able to subscribe for the shares.

I also have to add that when you use the code *165*65# you get bonus shares. For every 100 shares you buy, you get 5 shares as a bonus of using the code.

That is the process.

RK: What about for institutional investors that may want to buy, is it the same procedure?

AJ: Institutional Investors are a lot savvier than this. And definitely because of the amount they may invest, will definitely be using momo pay. They will do this through their bank accounts or their broker.

RK: Anne, there are SACCOS, Investment clubs, bibiina, how do they go about it?

AJ: Like Nigina? Those ones the process is a little different because of the signatories and the KYC required. But if you go to a broker or MTN service centre or any Stanbic Bank branch you will be guided on the KYC requirement of an entity and an individual. The process I described is for individuals.

WV: In addition… when you use the MIPO platform to apply or pay for your shares, you get 10 bonus shares for every 100. Any other channel you use, every Ugandan gets five bonus shares. Everyone registered with a national ID open to participate.

RK: Anne, could you give us a breakdown on the cost of shares?

AJ: Each share costs UGX 200. The minimum number of shares you can buy is 500 which means you need UGX 100,000 to be able to buy a minimum. But remember for every 100 shares, you get 10 bonus shares.

Stellar Kamakune: what if I finish all the procedures and by the end of the day, I don’t acquire the shares, will I be given back my money or I should consider that a loss?

AJ: You will not have a loss, Stellar. We opened on 11^th October 2021 and the offer will go till 22^nd November 2021 4PM. Until then you can buy. On the 3^rd December 2021 at 4pm, we will make an allocation announcement. This is not a science. So I cannot tell you how many people will subscribe, we are unable to say at this time. We take in all the allocations and once we have done that. On the 3^rd December, we will tell you how much you have got. If we are oversubscribed, there will be a refund process.

On 6^th December, we will list the stock and refund the money.

This is the allocation process that we are following.

When MTN Uganda says that this IPO is about Uganda, just know they have planned it all out. The first priority when allocating is going to be given to Ugandan individuals. For every Ugandan who has applied in their individual capacity, they will be considered first. If there is an over subscription, they will consider up to an amount of UGX 5 million.

After Ugandan individuals, we shall come to the professional investing groups/companies.

Third will be Kenya and Tanzania for East African individuals.

These will be followed by East African Professional investors.

And finally, if there are any shares left, they will be allocated to the international investing public.

Remember we are looking to raise UGX 895 Billion.

WV: If I may add, it is all free of charge; the sale of shares or any refund that needs to be done, it will all be free charge. All these transactions are free of charge.

Trevor Kwagala: What is the role of brokers in the process? 2) Should MTN diversify into another investment, do the shareholders have a stake in that new company?

James Musisi: Is the 100K really viable? Apart from dividends won’t those who have invested more suffocate those who have suffocated less?

RK: What is the return when people invest? What expectations should people have?

AJ: There are two ways you can earn from owning equity stock. You earn when the price moves up (you can sell) or when the company pays dividends.

However, when you are making an investment decision of this nature, there are no guarantees. This is different from other asset classes like I mentioned earlier. An equity investor looks at the history of the company and makes a future prospect but there are no guarantees. Take comfort in knowing that this is a company with a history of performance that has a bright future that is clearly demonstrated.

WV: on the question of big vs. small shareholders, all the shareholders are treated equally. There is no such a thing as preferential treatment. When you come to the AGM, all members will have equal rights. 

AJ: Also to clarify, whether you buy your share today or on the 22^nd November, you’re all going to be equal.

Arinaitwe: Is it possible to change from one broker to another? 2) How do you know your shares have appreciated?

Njeri: As a Kenyan living in Uganda, how do I participate in the IPO using a Safaricom Mpesa line? How do Kenyans and Tanzanians participate?

Rebecca: I am a South Sudanese living in South Sudan, how do I get to participate?

Aine: is there a whatsapp number to refer to in case there is a delay in response?

Rushongoza: does the purchase of shares inclusive or exclusive of stamp duty

Niyonzima: Shall MTN allow us to share our shares with others?

 Yvonne: To Wim, could you give a clear picture of what the prospectus holds?

Ariho: On pg240, could Anne clarify on the allotment of shares there referred to.

Kalema: There are calculations making rounds on social media, but are they true?

AJ: From a numerical point of view, the calculation is right but it makes one fundamental mistake, it assumes zero growth throughout the period of 26 years. Remember we are currently buying into the future story.

Novine Farm: For those investing for under 18, what is the procedure?

Jimmy Odongkara: What will MTN use the projected revenues be used for?

Nabatanzi: Does MTN have dates on when to plan to start giving out dividends?

Mujuni: Many of us worry about decline in voice traffic, is the heavy investment going towards voice or data and mobile money?

 Rwakojo: What’s MTN’s strategy behind the IPO?

Awori: What are the potential risks?

Declan: Does Stanbic have a page where I can view performance / analytics of the shares? What will determine the price of the stock, is it MTN or?

Last Remarks 

AJ:

It is important to read the information in the prospectus individually. Arm yourself with information.

Secondly, the question on 100,000. It is the bare minimum. We made it so to make it as inclusive as possible. We disseminate the information in as many languages as we can.

About brokers, all the brokers are free to operate. You can change your broker through the security exchange.

There is no tax.  There is no stamp duty.

You can buy in your name or someone’s name.

There is a video that does a step by step on how to open the SCD account.

WV:

In a nutshell, we have said that when you buy a share, you are buying into the future of the country which means you have read and understood what you are signing up for. There has to be growth.

The growth should translate into more profit. The dividend will be declared three times a year. We have been paying dividends for 15 years. That’s why I believe it will continue to be profitable and to grow. Dividends will be shared three times in August, October and in February.  

Yes it is true, it was an obligation as part of our license renewal to list 20% on the stock exchange but we have turned the obligation into an exciting opportunity. We have to list by June 2022 but it is not about “have to” but “want to”. #UgandaisHome we want everyone to be part of this story. We believe our customers deserve to be given a chance to participate in the stock exchange market. Ugandans first.

RK: Thank you both Wim and Anne.