Airtel Africa Plc, one of Nigeria’s largest listed firms and a major telecommunications player on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), is facing a widening valuation gap between its London and Lagos listings. Despite strong financial performance and rising investor confidence abroad, the company’s share price on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) has remained largely stagnant due to persistent market illiquidity and weak trading dynamics.
As of November 3, 2025, Airtel Africa’s LSE share price has surged from £1.17 to £2.80, representing an impressive 139% year-to-date (YTD) increase. In contrast, the company’s NGX-listed shares have inched up only modestly—from N2,156.90 to N2,310.50, a mere 7.1% rise over the same period. When converted at the prevailing exchange rate of N1,903.5 per pound, Airtel’s London valuation translates to roughly N5,329.9 per share, more than double its Nigerian price. This means the NGX listing trades at a 58% discount compared to its LSE counterpart.
The disparity highlights the growing structural divide between Nigeria’s domestic capital market and international exchanges. Airtel Africa, a member of the Stocks Worth Over One Trillion (SWOOT) category with a market capitalization exceeding N8.68 trillion, has seen its NGX price stagnate since mid-June 2025 despite strong financial results and positive investor sentiment globally.
Analysts Link Gap to Market Liquidity Deficit
Experts attribute the valuation gap primarily to liquidity constraints on the Nigerian Exchange. According to David Adonri, Chief Executive Officer of Highcap Securities Limited, limited trading volume on the NGX hinders price discovery even for fundamentally sound stocks.
“The movement of stock prices depends heavily on liquidity,” Adonri explained. “On the London Stock Exchange, the market is deep and dynamic, allowing price changes to reflect investor sentiment quickly. But on the NGX, moving a stock like Airtel Africa significantly would require buying about 100,000 shares—worth over N230 million at current prices. That’s far beyond the reach of most retail investors.”
Adonri further noted that while Airtel’s London valuation reflects future growth expectations and institutional optimism, its Nigerian price is constrained by market structure rather than fundamentals. “The NGX price tells you about liquidity limits, not value,” he said.
Cross-Market Frictions and Regulatory Barriers
Although the wide price differential might seem to present arbitrage opportunities, analysts say cross-border trading frictions make such opportunities impractical. Tajudeen Olayinka, CEO of Wyoming Capital & Securities Limited, explained that Airtel’s dual-listed shares are held in separate depository systems that lack real-time transfer mechanisms.
“You can’t just buy Airtel in Lagos and sell it in London,” Olayinka said. “Transferring holdings between depositories involves slow, expensive administrative procedures, access to scarce foreign exchange, and multiple layers of regulatory approval.”
He added that capital controls, FX scarcity, and a lack of cross-listing infrastructure effectively block arbitrage, keeping prices disconnected. “It’s not just sentiment,” Olayinka said. “It’s structural — a reflection of two entirely different market ecosystems.”
Institutional Dominance and Retail Inactivity
The imbalance in liquidity is further worsened by institutional dominance on the NGX. Large pension funds and asset managers hold significant portions of Airtel’s shares but typically maintain long-term positions, reducing day-to-day trading activity. Retail investors, who might have added vibrancy to the market, lack the capital base to influence price direction meaningfully.
“Only institutional players have the volume to move Airtel’s price,” Olayinka added. “Since most of them are buy-and-hold investors, the stock barely trades. Retail traders simply don’t have the financial muscle to make a difference.”
This has left Airtel’s local price largely static even as the company’s LSE-listed shares rallied on strong earnings, robust cash flow, and consistent dividend growth.
Strong Fundamentals, Weak Market Depth
Despite price stagnation on the NGX, Airtel Africa’s fundamentals remain outstanding. For the first half of 2025, the company posted a 29% revenue increase to $2.98 billion, a 35.9% rise in operating profit, and a 375% surge in profit after tax to $376 million. Its earnings per share (EPS) grew ninefold to 8.3 cents, and EBITDA margins improved from 45.8% to 48.5%.
The company also maintained disciplined financial management, reducing leverage from 2.3x to 2.1x and delivering operating cash flow of $1.13 billion, up 46.5% year-on-year. It declared an interim dividend of 2.84 cents per share, reflecting confidence in its earnings sustainability.
Nevertheless, analysts warn that without deeper liquidity, regulatory harmonization, and improved FX flexibility, Nigerian investors may continue missing out on the company’s true valuation upside. “The fundamentals are strong,” Adonri reiterated, “but until our markets deepen and cost of capital falls, premium stocks like Airtel will keep trading at artificial discounts.”
Outlook
Airtel Africa’s dual-listing divergence underscores a broader challenge for Nigeria’s capital markets — limited depth, weak foreign participation, and systemic barriers to cross-border capital mobility. Unless these frictions are addressed, Nigerian investors risk remaining spectators to value creation that is fully captured offshore.
In the meantime, Airtel Africa continues to reward long-term investors globally, even as its local share price remains trapped under the weight of illiquidity — a reminder that strong corporate fundamentals alone cannot overcome structural inefficiencies in fragmented markets.
