Airtel Africa Plc, one of the most valuable companies on Nigeria’s public market and a key telecom giant, is currently facing a striking phenomenon: a massive, widening gap in the valuation of its dual listings in London and Lagos.
The company’s shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) have soared dramatically this year, more than doubling from £1.17 in January 2025 to £2.80 as of early November. This translates to a remarkable 139 per cent year-to-date (YTD) gain. Conversely, the stock listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) has remained sluggish, inching up by a mere 7.1 per cent, from N2,156.90 to N2,310.50 over the same period.
When the LSE price is converted at the current exchange rate of N1,903.5 per pound sterling, Airtel’s London valuation reaches approximately N5,329.9 per share. This stunning figure is more than twice the local NGX price, effectively granting the Nigerian listing a staggering 58 per cent valuation discount.
The Liquidity Problem, Not a Value Problem
Market analysts are quick to point out that this stark divergence is not a reflection of weak business performance, but rather the result of deep structural and liquidity differences between the two exchanges.
David Adonri, Chief Executive Officer of Highcap Securities Limited, explained that constrained trading volumes on the NGX severely restrict price movement, even for prominent blue-chip stocks like Airtel Africa.
“The movement of stock upwards is facilitated by liquidity,” Adonri told reporters. “On the London market, trading is deep and dynamic, but on the NGX, to move Airtel’s price significantly, one would need to buy about 100,000 shares—that’s over N230 million at the current price. Only large institutions can do that.”
He emphasized that while Airtel Africa’s robust performance and valuation in London reflect genuine, growing investor confidence in the company’s future, the Nigerian market remains too shallow to accurately mirror that international optimism. Adonri concluded: “The London price shows what investors expect in the future. The NGX price reflects the market’s liquidity limits, not the company’s value.”
Architectural Disconnect
Tajudeen Olayinka, Chief Executive Officer of Wyoming Capital & Securities Limited, further elaborated that despite the dual listing, the two markets operate in entirely separate silos.
“You can’t simply buy Airtel shares in Nigeria and sell them in London,” Olayinka noted. He explained that transferring holdings between depositories—a necessary step to move shares across markets—is a slow, costly process that requires navigating Nigeria’s capital controls, obtaining regulatory clearances, and securing scarce foreign exchange.
This absence of a real-time, fluid link between the NGX and LSE makes the straightforward arbitrage trades that would typically close such a pricing gap completely unfeasible. “The disconnect is structural,” Olayinka stated. “It’s not just a difference in sentiment—it’s a difference in market architecture.”
