Its not long ago when Airtel ,one of the two telecom giants issued an IPO but investors are hesitant to buy shares because the company has not come out clearly to state how its two business arms are performing and relate to each other .
Airtel mobile money and the Airtel company ‘s revenues have not been separately put to the public to determine whether their IPO is viable and makes business sense . Remember many of the comapanies that have listed on Uganda’s stock market have not performed very well leading to Ugandans losing money in billions of shillings .
Now, one of the potential investors the Airtel people have been targeting according to reliable sources is workers money at NSSF . Luckily , NSSF Investment Committee is not in a hurry to put workers money in an IPO whose return on investment is not certain .
Sources at NSSF tell this publication that NSSF managers have given themselves one more week to study the fundamentals around the Airtel IPO before they make a decision whether to invest or not .
Among the issues that have to be resolved is whether the separation of Airtel Money which is the money bag – affects the profitability of Airtel the Company.
According to insiders , the prospectus that Airtel put out in the public domain ahead of their IPO, doesn’t disclose the bottom line of the two businesses that’s Airtel Money and Airtel the company . It is a requirement by the financial regulators that the telecom giants separate their mobile money business from the other company operations . This is because of the high growth in revenues that has been registered by these telecom companies over the years on their mobile money platforms so much so that some government officials consider it a national security matter.
This is why the NSSF ‘s Investment Committee and rightly so, is reluctant to move in because the dividend declared in the Airtel Prospectus is for both – Airtel Money and the Telecom ‘s other operations -basically money raised from airtime for communication purposes .
The public especially the workers are anxiously waiting to see which way NSSF shall go to -given its a public trust of workers savings . These tough decisions for NSSF come hot on the heels of a prolonged leadership row that greatly tarnished the organization’s image .
Some members of parliament who talked to ugandaupdatenews.com said they were also closely following this matter .
