{"id":102337,"date":"2015-10-27T11:47:58","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T09:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=102337"},"modified":"2015-10-27T11:47:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T09:47:58","slug":"mtns-r71-billion-fine-brings-talk-of-insider-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/102337\/mtns-r71-billion-fine-brings-talk-of-insider-trading\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN’s R71 billion fine brings talk of insider trading"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN recently announced that<\/a><\/strong> the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) imposed a fine equivalent to $5.2 billion (around R71 billion) on MTN Nigeria.<\/p>\n

The fine was imposed because MTN Nigeria did not disconnect 5.1 million subscribers as required by the country\u2019s SIM registration rules.<\/p>\n

Africa Analysis telecoms analyst Dobek Pater said the situation is similar to South Africa\u2019s RICA laws, where only registered SIMs are allowed on mobile networks.<\/p>\n

MTN said the \u201cfine relates to the timing of the disconnection of 5.1 million MTN Nigeria subscribers, who were disconnected in August and September 2015\u201d.<\/p>\n

The fine of 1.04 trillion naira is based on a fine of 200,000 naira for each unregistered subscriber who was not disconnected.<\/p>\n

MTN Nigeria said it is in discussions with the NCC to resolve the matter.<\/p>\n

MTN messed up: analysts<\/h3>\n

Ashraf Mohamed, an executive director at Sycamore Fund, said MTN\u2019s trading volume at around 11:00 on the day of the fine announcement \u2013 shortly before the company\u2019s required SENS announcement \u2013 was very high.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround an hour later the SENS announcement was made.\u00a0Somebody certainly went in and sold those shares with insider knowledge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mohamed said he will be surprised if the JSE does not investigate the trades which happened before MTN\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Business Day TV host Giulietta Talevi said<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0MTN would almost certainly have been aware\u00a0of the fine, and for them to not put out a statement early in the morning was \u201cvery poor form\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anchor Securities Portfolio Manager Deryck Janse van Rensburg agreed, saying that transparency for a large company like MTN is vital.<\/p>\n

He said investors and shareholders need\u00a0to know what is going on, and that a company should inform the market about possible issues \u201csooner rather than later\u201d.<\/p>\n

MyBroadband asked MTN for comment regarding the issue, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

MTN shares plummet 12.5% after R71 billion fine<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN hit with R71 billion fine<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN grows its customer base in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investors have criticized the way MTN handled news about a massive fine in Nigeria, and predict that the JSE will investigate insider trading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":29355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,805,175,28],"class_list":["post-102337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-insider-trading","tag-jse","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102339,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102337\/revisions\/102339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}