Airtel has indicated that it has received a regulatory extension for the sale of its unsold shares from the initial public offering to at least November 2026. The shares, which represent a 9.11 percent stake, are currently held by the minority shareholder Airtel Africa.
The unsold shares will be sold through a secondary offer to comply with a statutory requirement in which the telecom is required to complete the sale of a 20 percent stake to Ugandans.
Airtel’s initial public offering in Uganda
In November last year, Airtel was listed on the Uganda Securities Exchange after completing an initial public offering that had been extended by two weeks. The offer included a bonus share incentive, and Airtel managed to sell 4.35 billion shares or 10.89 percent of the offer.
A balance of 9.11 percent or 3.64 shares remained unsold. However, in its annual report, Airtel Africa indicated it had received a regulatory extension to sell the unsold shares by November 2026.
Regulatory requirements for unsold shares
According to the USE listing guidelines, a company is required to sell unsold shares within at least two years of listing. The news of the regulatory extension comes slightly over two weeks after MTN announced the results of its oversubscribed secondary offer.
The MTN secondary offer, which had announced 1.57 billion available shares, received more than three billion applications, signaling increased confidence in the telecom sector, whose initial public offering in 2021 had returned an undersubscription.
Airtel’s initial public offering incentives and subscription
The Airtel initial public offering sold at Shs 100 and included an offer of incentive shares on a band of subscription volumes, where retail investors who applied for at least 1.85 billion received 112 free shares for each 100 shares allocated. However, despite the incentive offer, the initial public offering only managed a subscription of 54.54 percent, with the National Social Security Fund making a last-minute purchase of 97 percent of allocated shares.
The share price has declined post-initial public offering to trade at Shs 70, indicating that Airtel Africa could be forced to offer deeper discounts to meet the local ownership requirements in the impending secondary offer.