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MTN Group, South African telecoms giant, says United States President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran may make it difficult to repatriate $237 million of its fund in the country, which it has being operating in since 20o5.
Iran is MTN’s second-largest market with 43 million customers at the end of 2017; MTN Group Ltd. said efforts to repatriate about 200 million euros ($237 million) from its Iranian unit will become tougher after U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated economic sanctions on the Islamic republic.
MTN issued a statement saying: during 2018 MTN Group has repatriated approximately $104 million from MTN Irancell including $72.44 million relating to the full 2017 dividend due to MTN as well as a further $32 million of historic dividends, it said.
“The remaining balance due to MTN is about €200m,” MTN said.
Irancell is an Iranian telecommunications company that operates Iran’s second largest 2G-3G-4G-4.5G mobile network, and fixed wireless TD-LTE internet services. The company’s joint venture in 2006 with MTN Group owning 49percent and Iran Electronics Industries owning 51percentwere launched in Iran.
The company said this decision will “limit the ability of MTN Group to repatriate cash, both dividends and loans, from MTN Irancell”.
“We will continue to monitor the situation including the response of the Iranian authorities and the other JCPOA members,” the company announced.
Trump on Tuesday signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and said he is planning to reinstall sanctions on the Iranian regime.
“It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said from the White House.
“The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing we know exactly what will happen,” US President said.
Early this month, Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator recorded 9.1 percent increase in its revenue for the first quarter of 2018 ended March 31.
The rise in revenue of the South African telecom firm was due to growth in Nigeria and Ghana, where voice revenue expanded.
A further breakdown of the report revealed that MTN Group voice revenue grew by 5.4 percent. The group’s data revenue was up by 26.9 percent, as it executed on dual-data strategy, ensuring appropriate data coverage across their footprint.
The MTN group said they have made good progress on the IPO processes in Nigeria, and they aim to conclude it during 2018.
