Airtel Money Slips Below Its 196p Offer Price as Unconditional London Trading OpensAirtel Money Slips Below Its 196p Offer Price as Unconditional London Trading Opens

The slide is an early test of investor appetite for African fintech listings. The shares later recovered to around 186p, still about 5.10% under the price at which institutions bought into the offer, according to Billionaires.Africa's report on the first unconditional session.

From conditional dealings to a discount

Conditional dealings started on the London Stock Exchange on Friday 9 October under the ticker AMC. The shares touched 200p at the start, then slipped below the offer price. Hargreaves Lansdown reported that they had fallen 2.0% to 192.1p by 12:15 BST that day, while Airtel Africa, the majority shareholder, dropped 5.6% to 292.4p.

Full admission to trading began at 08:00 BST on 14 October, which let investors outside the offer allocation trade the stock for the first time. That is the session in which the 181.28p low was recorded.

Mwenendo earlier reported on how Airtel Money set its London valuation at £5.3 billion at the 196p price. That equals about KSh 909.58B ($7B), below the $8B to $9B range reported while the listing was being prepared.

A secondary sale with no fresh capital

The offering was a secondary sale of 270 million existing shares, plus 27 million more through an over-allotment option. The company issued no new shares and received no fresh capital from the main offering. Proceeds went to the selling shareholders, and the amount was not stated in the reports reviewed.

Airtel Africa held about 78% of Airtel Money before the offering. It did not expect to sell in the main offer and said it intends to remain a "long-term strategic shareholder." The business is controlled through the telecom group of Sunil Bharti Mittal, who founded Bharti Enterprises, the controlling shareholder of Airtel Africa.

Airtel Money reports about 53 million monthly active users across 13 African countries and more than 2.3 million local agents. Those figures describe the scale investors are being asked to value, but they do not by themselves explain the discount.

AJ Bell analyst Dan Coatsworth said that "many people will be hoping for a repeat of this success" in comments tied to Airtel Africa's own 2019 listing, which has since produced a 262% gain. He noted that Airtel Money would rank as the fifth-largest London float by market value in the past three decades, excluding International Main Market listings.

What the first days show

Two sessions are too few to judge the company's value. The discount shows that buyers were not willing to pay above the offer price in the first unconditional session, and that the valuation settled below earlier expectations.

Mwenendo also reported how Ethiopia capped the Dangote refinery offer at 100 qualified investors, another sign that African issuers are competing for the same pool of cash. Further trading will show whether Airtel Money closes the gap to 196p or settles lower.