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