Airtel Africa drops 12.5% in early trade after London debut

Airtel Africa shares dropped as much as 12.5% in early trade on Friday after its London stock market debut, hitting a low of 70 pence ($0.89) after earlier setting the price at 80 pence per share.

Airtel Africa, a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd, last week set a price range of 80 to 100 pence per share for its IPO, before pricing at the bottom of the range.

The final offer comprised 744,047,619 new shares, setting the deal size at 595 million pounds ($754.3 million) and the initial market capitalisation at about 3.1 billion pounds at issue, the company said.