{"id":9761,"date":"2012-04-13T14:12:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T12:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=9761"},"modified":"2012-04-13T16:02:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T14:02:22","slug":"turkcell-pegging-mtn-back-on-the-jse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/9761\/turkcell-pegging-mtn-back-on-the-jse\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkcell pegging MTN back on the JSE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite general consensus that there is very little substance to Turkcell\u2019s<\/a> legal claims against MTN (MTN)<\/a>, the ongoing battle is pegging back the SA-based mobile operator on the JSE as investors continue to stay away, according to a local analyst.<\/p>\n

Group President and CEO of MTN Group, Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a> on Thursday (April 12, 2012) accused Turkcell of making \u201csensationalist allegations\u201d against the group in obtaining a licence in Iran, and dismissed the charges of human rights abuses as \u201cboth false and offensive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Turkish mobile operator has launched a $4.2 billion lawsuit in a US court accusing MTN of bribing its way to the Iranian licence and alleging human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

An analyst at PSG Konsult<\/a> says that MTN\u2019s share price barely reacted to Dabengwa\u2019s comments. \u00a0\u201cThere seems to be nothing to Turkcell\u2019s claims, especially given that it has filed in the US. That said, the ongoing debate on whether MTN is guilty or not is creating uncertainty in the market and is likely to drag on for some time yet. MTN could be at R140,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In early afternoon trade on the JSE, MTN moved a fraction into the black, to R131.31 having leaked more than a percent at its worst levels on Thursday, but more or less in line with the local bourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cR130 looks like a level of support since the filing of the Turkcell claim.\u00a0 There are clearly sellers in the system keeping the price down.\u00a0 Hopefully the company is utilizing the depressed share price to buy-back some shares,\u201d opined Fred Teeling-Smith, a telecoms analyst at STANLIB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dabengwa\u00a0said that MTN did not cause Turkcell to lose \u201cits\u201d licence in Iran, as Turkcell has claimed.<\/p>\n

He stated that what was of particular concern were the allegations that accused MTN of complicity in human rights abuses in Iran.\u00a0 \u201cSuch allegations are both false and offensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the start of the month ((April 2, 2012) shares in MTN declined as a much as R7.02, or 5.2%, to R128 on the JSE \u2013 before ending the day 3.87% off at R129.80.<\/p>\n

In March, MTN Group released results for the year-ended 31 December 2011, reporting a 16.2% growth in group subscriber numbers, to 164.5 million and a 6.3% increase in revenues, to R121.884 billion. The group\u2019s adjusted headline earnings per share increased 43.2%, to R10.70 cents.<\/p>\n

The group declared a final dividend of 476 cents.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN CEO rebuffs Turkcell accusations<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Turkcell will struggle to bring MTN case in US<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Turkcell files $100m defamation case against MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN, The Fish, and Project Snooker<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite consensus that there is very little substance to Turkcell’s legal claims against MTN (MTN), the ongoing battle is pegging back the SA based mobile operator on the JSE as investors continue to stay away, according to a local analyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,1361,175,28,1310,1890,1482,1292],"class_list":["post-9761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-irancell","tag-jse","tag-mtn","tag-psg-konsult","tag-sifiso-dabengwa","tag-stanlib","tag-turkcell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761","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=9761"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9766,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761\/revisions\/9766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}