{"id":145885,"date":"2015-08-24T12:25:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T12:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=145885"},"modified":"2015-08-24T12:25:07","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T12:25:07","slug":"mtn-scraps-early-nigeria-debt-payment-amid-currency-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=145885","title":{"rendered":"MTN scraps early Nigeria debt payment amid currency shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MTN Group Ltd. has abandoned plans to repay early about $500 million of debt held in Nigeria, saying it can\u2019t get hold of dollars in the African wireless carrier\u2019s biggest market.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;FTwxgaRirdDtLcLsCC2UkM9CMsVHnTev&#8221;]\u201cWe had looked to do the early resettlement but currently we are not able to,\u201d Nik Kershaw, head of investor relations, said by phone on Monday. \u201cIn Nigeria there is limited availability of the hard currency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MTN, which has more than 230 million mobile-phone customers in 22 countries,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-08-05\/mtn-in-talks-with-nigeria-central-bank-on-early-debt-repayment\">said Aug. 5<\/a>\u00a0it was in talks with Nigeria\u2019s Central Bank about the early repayment of borrowings to reduce exposure to the naira, which has weakened against the U.S. dollar this year. The Johannesburg-based company sees the naira deteriorating further, Kershaw said.<\/p>\n<p>Declines in emerging market currencies against the dollar, including the South African rand, will hurt the business, Kershaw said. The cost of importing handsets into South Africa could rise, for example, with the difference to be passed onto the consumer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the handset pricing goes up because the currency weakens, it\u2019s going to cost the consumer more,\u201d Kershaw said.<\/p>\n<p>The rand\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-08-24\/south-africa-s-rand-sinks-most-since-2011-as-commodities-tumble\">tumbled to a record<\/a>\u00a0low on Monday on concern plunging global commodity prices will worsen the country\u2019s economic outlook. The currency traded 2 percent weaker at 13.2340 against the dollar as of 12:54 p.m. in Johannesburg. MTN shares declined 4.9 percent to 168.50 rand, compared with a 2.5 percent fall on the FTSE\/JSE Africa Top 40 Index.<\/p>\n<p>MTN will take time to consider how to respond to the rand\u2019s weakness in terms of cost controls and investment plans, Kershaw said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we do the next budget cycle we\u2019ll review that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have a short-term, knee jerk reaction to the currency moving, you need to see how things play out over the next couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0 \u00a0Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MTN Group Ltd. has abandoned plans to repay early about $500 million of debt held in Nigeria, saying it can\u2019t get hold of dollars in the African wireless carrier\u2019s biggest market. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;FTwxgaRirdDtLcLsCC2UkM9CMsVHnTev&#8221;]\u201cWe had looked to do the early resettlement but currently we are not able to,\u201d Nik Kershaw, head of investor relations, said by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":93910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20,4],"class_list":["post-145885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mental-health-authority","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}