Airtel Money is set to float at a valuation of £5.3bn in what would be one of the biggest listings on the London Stock Exchange in recent years.
The fintech arm of the telecommunications giant Airtel Africa said its investors would sell 270m shares at a price of £1.96 per share in the offer, which is likely to come later this month.
The firm was previously reported to be angling for a valuation of between $8bn and $9bn. The IPO is set to raise around £529m, according to terms seen by City AM. The International Finance Corporation has committed up to £67.2m as a cornerstone investor.
Investors including the Qatar Investment Authority and Mastercard are selling shares as part of the deal, according to the terms.
The valuation would open the door for a spot in the FTSE 100. Airtel said it expects to have a “free float that would make it eligible for inclusion” in the FTSE indices.
Airtel Africa is majority-owned by Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Enterprises and is Africa’s third-largest wireless carrier. It listed on the London Stock Market in July 2019.
A spin-off listing for its fintech has been in the works following its rapid growth, now boasting over 50m customers. Payments giant Mastercard holds a stake of just shy of four per cent in the firm following a $100m investment back in April 2021 that valued the business at $2.7bn.
The listing will mark the first in what City officials hope could be a slew of ripe fintech talent heading to the public market. This week payments firm Zilch kicked off conversations with bankers for a public debut on the London Stock Exchange.
Zilch counts Goldman Sachs, Deutche Bank and the venture capital arms of both the Daily Mail and Ebay among its investors. Chief executive Philip Belamant told City AM last year the firm had maintained a $2bn price tag in its 2025 £134m funding round, the last time the company raised money.
