{"id":7252,"date":"2012-03-05T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T11:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=7252"},"modified":"2012-03-05T11:35:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T11:35:54","slug":"mtn-shares-off-as-investors-await-turkcell-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/7252\/mtn-shares-off-as-investors-await-turkcell-clarity\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN shares off as investors await Turkcell clarity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shares in mobile operator, MTN<\/a> (MTN), lost ground in afternoon trade on the JSE on Monday (March 5, 2012), as investors await details on a threatened lawsuit from Turkcell over its licence in Iran.<\/p>\n

MTN is due to publish its results on Wednesday (March 7, 2012).<\/p>\n

By 13:25, shares in MTN declined R2.30 or 1.67% to R135.19; while rival Vodacom<\/a> (VOD) added 20 cents to R102.60.<\/p>\n

Telkom<\/a> (TKG), meanwhile, continued to fall – off 30 cents, or R1.20%, to R24.60.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany investors will be waiting to see if MTN\u2019s results meet expectations. MTN has a lot of skeletons in the closet, and just like Vodacom, it looks like data is the next frontier for mobile operators,\u201d a local dealer told BusinessTech.<\/p>\n

\u201cWednesday will be a chance for the group to provide an update on the situation in Iran. Many investors will be curious to get some detail around the accusations being made against the company,\u201d the dealer added.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that Telkom\u2019s problems are well documented, including a host of management changes, the Multi-Links debacle, and an impending decision by the Competition Commission on a case of abuse of market dominance.<\/p>\n

MTN Group said Friday that it expects a rise of between 41.8% and 46.8% in adjusted headline earnings per share, for the year ended December 2011, compared to 909.1 cents previously.<\/p>\n

Attributable earnings per share are expected to increase by between 41.7% and 46.7%, and basic HEPS to increase by between 37.9% and 42.9%, MTN said.<\/p>\n

It noted that prior year reported earnings included a R2.9 billion charge, associated with the implementation of the MTN Zakhele scheme, which had the effect of negatively impacting the prior year\u2019s reported earnings. \u201cIf this charge is excluded, current year\u2019s earnings growth would have been between 56% and 61% lower.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current year\u2019s earnings are also positively affected by lower net finance costs,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

In February, MTN advised that Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetlera AS (Turkcell) , which was unsuccessful in attaining the second GSM telecommunications licence in Iran, was looking to bring a case against the group in a US court.<\/p>\n

MTN, which owns 49% of Irancell – the group that was awarded the 2nd Iranian GSM licence – said that it had been informed by Turkcell that it believes it has a claim against MTN and its relevant subsidiary. This, arising out of the award of the 2nd GSM Licence, based on alleged violations of United States laws, and has indicated an intention to bring such a claim before a United States court.<\/p>\n

Turkcell claimed that MTN had asked South Africa to support Iran\u2019s nuclear development in return for a license.<\/p>\n

The Istanbul-based firm alleges that MTN made \u201cimproper payments to an Iranian and a South African government official,\u201d during 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n

No such claim has been filed or served yet, MTN said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shares in mobile operator, MTN (MTN), lost ground in afternoon trade on the JSE on Monday, as investors await details on a threatened lawsuit from Turkcell over its licence in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,1361,175,28,65,1292],"class_list":["post-7252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-irancell","tag-jse","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-turkcell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7252","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7252"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7257,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7252\/revisions\/7257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}