MTN shares gain most in five years after peaceful Nigerian vote

MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest wireless operator, increased the most in almost five years after former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari won a largely peaceful vote in Nigeria, the South African company’s biggest market.

The shares advanced as much as 6.6 percent, the most since May 2010, and traded 5.6 percent higher at 216.45 rand as of 1 p.m. in Johannesburg. That pared the year’s decline to 2.2 percent, valuing the company at 400 billion rand ($33 billion).

In Nigeriaitself, the stock index jumped 8.3 percent at 1:37 p.m. in Lagos, the commercial capital on Wednesday, while the yield on the West African nation’s Eurobonds due July 2023 fell 21 basis points to 5.99 percent, the lowest since Dec. 5, Bloomberg reports.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who lost by a 52.4 percent to 43.7 percent margin, conceded defeat on Tuesday evening, an unprecedented step in a country accustomed to post-election violence and turmoil.

“I promised the country free and fair elections,” he said in a statement. “I have kept my word.”

The planning for Buhari’s win over Jonathan, a 57-year-old southern Christian went back two years ago when three major opposition parties decided to unite to unseat the ruling People’s Democratic Party, which governed Nigeria since the end of military rule in 1999.

That alliance, the All Progressives Congress, helped Buhari make inroads in the southwest, home of the Yoruba people where Christians and Muslims live side by side, as well as in some central regions that he didn’t win in previous elections, said Tunji Lardner, executive director of the West African NGO Network.

“Nigeria has gone through a democratic process which re-enforces the country’s outlook,” Bruce Main, a money manager at Ivy Asset Management in Johannesburg, said by phone. “There is confidence that there are not going to be any major legislative changes. That’s good news for a company like MTN, which gets a huge portion of earnings from Nigeria.”

MTN had 59.9 million subscribers in Nigeria at the end of 2014, compared with 223 million across all 22 markets. Sales in Africa’s most populous country gained 12 percent last year, compared with a 6.4 percent increase in total revenue.