By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest mobile-phone operator, said full-year earnings per share (EPS) gained as much as 25 percent following the sale of its Nigerian towers business to local operator IHS Holding Ltd, a Bloomberg report said.

According to the report, headline EPS which exclude one-time items, increased as much as 15 percent to 16.23 rand ($1.23) in 2014, Bloomberg report was quoted as saying

It added attributable earnings per share were between 15 percent and 25 percent higher, or 16.79 rand to 18.25 rand.

Early September last year, IHS Holding Ltd, Africa’s largest independent phone tower company, agreed to buy 9,151 Nigerian towers from MTN Group in a deal valued at about $2 billion.

The report says the shares of MTN declined as much as 2.9 percent and were 0.9 percent lower at 211.40 rand as of 3:25 p.m. in Johannesburg. “The stock is down 4.3 percent this year, valuing the company at 391 billion rand,” Bloomberg affirmed.