South African-owned mobile telecommunications provider, MTN Group announced that it has concluded the sale of its Guinea operations to the State of Guinea, marking its final exit from the market.
According to a statement from the Group, the sale was concluded on December 30, 2024, saying the transaction aligns with its focus on portfolio optimisation and simplification which is part of its Ambition 2025 strategy.
MTN Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita while commenting on the sale of the business stated, “This milestone marks a new phase for MTN Guinea-Conakry under local ownership, and MTN thanks the staff, customers, regulators and broader stakeholders in Guinea for the support during the time MTN has been operational in the country.
“Concluding this transaction is in line with the strategy to simplify the portfolio and allocating capital to markets where we can make a difference as MTN and deliver long-term growth and returns.”
MTN’s decision to exit the Guinea market stems from its assessment of how the portfolio fits within its risk management framework.
Speaking to journalists in Johannesburg in August 2024, Mupita explained the group’s rationale for disposing of operations in Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau.
“Given our risk management framework and the things we need, some markets are very difficult. We’re not the best owners of those businesses because they’re subscale or they’re small, and they are not going to be able to fund their own growth,” Mupita shared in remarks reported by Connecting Africa.
He elaborated that the group evaluates each market’s ability to fund its growth sustainably, adding that the moment a business sustainably cannot fund its own growth for whatever reason, “we have to assess portfolio fit yes or no.”
He noted that they were difficult decisions to make because “they involve colleagues, but they are necessary all the same.”
For Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau, the group determined that even with significant growth in revenue or profits, MTN was not the best owner of these operations.
“We looked at them and said, even if they triple their revenue or their profits, are we the best owners of these businesses? And the answer was no, so we said let’s engage with third parties,” Mupita stated.
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