Angola completed its largest-ever initial public offering this week, raising 300.3 billion kwanzas ($327 million) through the sale of a 15% stake in Unitel SA, the country's dominant telecommunications operator, in a deal that was more than 20% oversubscribed and marked a major milestone for the nation's young capital markets.
The government, acting through the state asset manager IGAPE, sold 7.5 million ordinary shares at 40,040 kwanzas each — the top of the indicated price range of 36,036 to 40,040 kwanzas. Demand reached 362.1 billion kwanzas, producing a final subscription rate of 120.72%. Of the 18,571 orders submitted during the July 6–24 subscription window, 17,549 were accepted, bringing in more than 11,000 new shareholders. The offer was split into an employee tranche of 1 million shares, or 2% of the company, and a general public tranche of 6.5 million shares, or 13%.
All 50 million of Unitel's shares were admitted to trading on the Bolsa de Dívida e Valores de Angola (BODIVA) on Wednesday, July 29, making it the exchange's first non-financial listed company. BFA Capital Markets, a securities-dealer unit of Banco de Fomento Angola — which itself co-owns Unitel — ran the offering as lead intermediary. Paulo Graça e Silva, the BFA Capital Markets executive who fronted the deal, called it the largest public offering ever recorded in the country. The placement syndicate also included Áurea, Distribuidora Valor, Eaglestone and Standard Invest, all licensed securities dealers, along with Hemera Capital Partners Securities and Banco Caixa Geral Angola, which took orders through its branch network. Banco de Fomento Angola supported distribution outside BFA Capital Markets' own channels, sourcing investors and forwarding orders without acting as a licensed placement agent itself. Angola's Capital Markets Commission approved the price range on July 1 and oversaw the offer alongside BODIVA, which handled allocation and settlement.
The listing proceeded despite a cyberattack that hit Unitel's network the day before trading began, temporarily disrupting voice, mobile data and internet services across the country. Unitel said it detected the intrusion at about 2:20 a.m. local time on Tuesday and activated containment procedures, though it gave no details on the attack's origin or scope, and disruption reportedly continued for more than 24 hours. Neither BODIVA nor the Capital Markets Commission delayed the debut.
Unitel is Angola's largest mobile operator, serving more than 21 million customers across all 18 provinces, and holds a controlling stake in Banco de Fomento Angola. The company reported net profit of approximately 158 billion kwanzas for 2025, which chairman Amílcar Safeca cited as evidence of a robust financial position with strong liquidity and investment capacity. At the IPO price, the full company carried an implied market capitalisation of roughly $2.1–2.2 billion.
The offering forms a centrepiece of President João Lourenço's PROPRIV privatisation and economic-reform agenda. The state had earlier nationalised a 25% stake previously held through vehicles linked to Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former president José Eduardo dos Santos, as part of an anti-corruption campaign; dos Santos disputes the seizure and contests related legal cases from Dubai. Officials have presented the Unitel sale as both a budget-support measure and a test of investor confidence in Angola's capital markets, which only began hosting equity listings in 2022 and until now consisted largely of financial names such as Banco Angolano de Investimento, ENSA Seguros and Banco de Fomento Angola itself.
Posts
0 Comments