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South Africa's MTN to swing to H1 loss on Nigeria fine

Travellers walk past an MTN telecom shop at King Shaka International Airport in Durban, South Africa, November 16, 2015. REUTERS/Rogan Ward

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African mobile phone operator MTN Group flagged a half-year loss on Thursday, blaming a hefty fine in Nigeria and underperformance at home. * MTN said on June 10 it had agreed to pay a heavily reducedfine of 330 billion naira ($1.2 billion), or a third of theinitial penalty, in a settlement with Nigeria for missing adeadline to deactivate more than 5 million unregistered SIMcards. * MTN, Africa's biggest mobile phone group, said itsheadline loss was expected to come in a range of 285 cents to255 cents per share in the six months to end-June. * In total, the net effect of the Nigerian fine on thecurrent period was a negative impact of 474 cents per share. * Underlying operational results for half-year 2016 werefurther affected by under-performance of MTN Nigeria * Earnings were further negatively impacted by foreignexchange losses of 135 cents per share. * Relatively weaker operational performance of MTN SouthAfrica, which is expected to report a decline in EBITDA margin,impacted by a marked increase in the sale of lower-marginhandsets during half-year 2016.Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: [MTNJ.J] (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Esha Vaish; Editing by Mark Potter)