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Tigo Tanzania ready to list after court settles dispute

Tuesday December 04 2018
tigo

Tigo Tanzania is inching closer to listing on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange after finalising the legal requirements for an IPO. PHOTO FILE | NATION

By BEATRICE MATERU

Tigo Tanzania has moved closer to listing on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange after finalising the legal requirements for an initial public offering.

The telecommunications firm, Tanzania’s second largest, is expected to list “soon” to comply with the Electronic and Postal Act of 2010, which requires telcos to list 25 per cent of their shares on the bourse.

“We have completed legal conversion from a private limited company to a public limited company,” said a statement by the company released this past week.

When it lists, Tigo will join its main competitor Vodacom Tanzania on the stock market.

The latest move by Tigo came after the telco won the ownership battle with Golden Globe International Services and Quality Group of Tanzania, which claimed to have acquired 34,479 shares in Tigo Tanzania’s holding company MIC Tanzania Ltd in 2014.

The Court of Appeal declared that MIC owns 100 per cent of Tigo Tanzania.

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The dispute was brought against Millicom by Golden Globe International Services Ltd and Quality Group Ltd; both companies are owned by businessman Yusuph Manji.

The companies alleged that in 2014 they acquired 34,479 shares in Tigo Tanzania’s holding company MIC Tanzania Ltd, which would mean that the two companies owned 99 per cent of the business between them.

But the Court of Appeal ruled that Millicom was Tigo Tanzania’s legal owner.

The decision paves the way for the IPO, a process Tigo initiated at the end of 2016, but which was delayed by the ownership wrangles.

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