In April, MTN Nigeria said it would sell 60% of MoMo PSB and Y’ello Digital to its parent, MTN Group. The headline claim was a ₦95.5bn valuation, described as a 2.1x premium over the companies’ carrying value as of December 2025. KPMG gave a fairness opinion, and shareholders approved the deal on April 30.
Think of it like buying a car for ₦10 million. If you get into an accident and write its value down on paper to ₦4 million, selling it later for ₦8 million lets you claim a “2x valuation gain over book value”, even though you are still down ₦2 million on the actual cash you spent.
MTN Nigeria’s nine-month financial statements, for the period to September 30, let you check what that premium is measured against. The answer changes how the number reads.
What the premium is measured against
The report lists what MTN Nigeria has invested in its subsidiaries. As of December 2025, it had invested ₦92.95bn in MoMo PSB and ₦15bn in Y’ello Digital. That is ₦107.95bn for the two fintech companies, plus ₦0.5bn in XS Broadband.
Against that ₦108.45bn, MTN carried ₦63.06bn of impairment – an accounting write-down that occurs when the real-world value of a company’s asset permanently falls below what is recorded on its balance sheet. The net figure was ₦45.39bn.
Divide ₦95.5bn by ₦45.39bn, and you get 2.10. That matches the 2.1x MTN quoted. The statements do not say which base MTN used, but the match is too close to ignore.
Now measure the same valuation against the money MTN Nigeria put in. ₦95.5bn is 88% of the ₦107.95bn invested in the two fintech companies by December. It is 69% of the ₦137.95bn invested by September. The premium exists only against a figure that had already been cut.
| Benchmark | Total Amount | Claimed Sale Valuation | Real-World Impact |
| Paper Book Value (Dec 2025 net) | ₦45.39bn | ₦95.5bn | 2.1x “Premium” (Headline Claim) |
| Cash Invested (Dec 2025 total) | ₦107.95bn | ₦95.5bn | 12% loss against spent cash |
| Cash Invested (Sept 2026 total) | ₦137.95bn | ₦95.5bn | 31% loss against spent cash |
The statements do not split the impairment by company. XS Broadband cost only ₦0.5bn, so almost all of it must sit against the fintech businesses. Of the ₦63.06bn at December, ₦62.56bn was charged in the first nine months of 2025. In the nine months to September 2026, MTN charged another ₦14.73bn, which takes the total to ₦77.79bn.
MTN also kept paying in. The company’s cash flow statement shows ₦30bn invested in a subsidiary during the period, and the investment in MoMo PSB rose from ₦92.95bn to ₦122.95bn. MTN described the sale valuation as free of intra-group debt and cash. In September, MoMo PSB and Y’ello Digital owed the parent ₦38.4bn between them.
Deposits that arrived late
The same statements hold a second puzzle. Customer deposits in MoMo stood at ₦43.82bn on September 30, against ₦9.84bn in December. Of that, ₦42.55bn sits in treasury bills, which is 97% of the balance. In December, the share was 87%.
MTN’s half-year disclosure put deposits at ₦14.0bn in June. That means ₦29.8bn of the ₦34.0bn rise, or 88%, arrived in the third quarter alone.
Wallets moved the other way. MTN reported 5.0 million active wallets at the half-year. The Q3 statements show 3.2 million, a fall of 36%, and a footnote blames the migration to a new platform and the deactivation of legacy wallets.
Yet, the report explains the deposit growth by pointing to increased wallet adoption. The same document records fewer active wallets. It also says there was no change to product terms or pricing.
In other words, individual everyday users were leaving or having their accounts deactivated (wallets fell 36%), yet customer money in the platform nearly quadrupled. Because 97% of those deposits went straight into government treasury bills, it suggests the financial growth came from large corporate or high-net-worth placements rather than everyday mobile phone users.
Revenue shows a similar tension. MTN reported core mobile money revenue growth of 132% at the half-year, and it reports 102.2% for the nine months ending September 30. If both figures measure the same line, the third quarter must have grown more slowly than 102%. That is the quarter in which deposits tripled.
What the statements leave open
The statements are unaudited. They do not give MoMo’s revenue or profit in naira. They do not allocate the impairment by company. They do not explain how deposits tripled in a quarter while active wallets fell.
They do show a sequence. MTN Nigeria invested ₦137.95bn in two fintech companies and wrote down more than half of its subsidiary investments. It then agreed on a valuation that beats the written-down figure by 2.1x and trails the money invested by September by almost a third.
Because MTN Nigeria is selling these fintech assets to its parent company (MTN Group), the valuation determines how wealth is transferred across corporate lines. Framing the deal around a written-down paper value makes the transaction look like a major success on paper, even while the sale price sits well below the actual cash MTN Nigeria poured into building the businesses.
The sale had not closed on September 30. It still needs regulatory approval, and the report says the effect on MTN’s disclosures will be set once control ends.
Last updated: November 1, 2026
