MTN Group Limited has appointed its Chief Financial Officer, Ralph Mupita, as chief executive officer, sticking with an internal candidate to replace the departing Rob Shuter as head of Africa’s biggest wireless carrier.

According to Bloomberg, Mupita will take over the role from Sept. 1, Johannesburg-based MTN said in a statement on Wednesday.

Shuter will remain available until the end of his fixed-term contract early next year, when he leaves to join British operator BT Group Plc as head of the enterprise division.

A graduate of Harvard Business School, Mupita became MTN CFO in 2017 after nearly two decades at a South African insurer, Old Mutual Ltd.

Alongside Shuter, he has helped lead a strategy that has seen the carrier dispose of assets such as telecom towers and concentrate on fewer markets, with a plan to pull out of the Middle East announced earlier this month. The company expects to dispose of its Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria businesses first, with others to follow in a phased manner.

Mupita is “very much a continuity candidate — seems to be a safe pair of hands and unlikely to make any major changes to strategic direction,” said John Davies, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“He’s a good communicator and has had time to get the telecom-specific experience while he has been CFO.”

MTN shares gained 3.3 per cent to 68.66 rand in Johannesburg, trimming a decline for the year to 17 per cent.

Then-Chairman Phuthuma Nhleko named Shuter for the top job in 2016, luring him from Vodafone Group Plc. When he took up the post the following year, a key task was to revive the carrier following a battle with authorities over undocumented subscribers in Nigeria, which resulted in a $1 billion fine.

However, MTN went on to have further clashes in the company’s biggest market, including over claims the firm illegally moved $8.1bn out of the country and owed $2bn in back taxes.

Both matters were eventually resolved in MTN’s favour, though the lengthy battles took a toll on the stock. The shares are down about 45 per cent over Shuter’s three and a half years as CEO.

An update on filling the group’s chief financial off