Just a couple of weeks after agreeing to sell 4,800 towers in Nigeria to American Tower, Bharti Airtel said today it would offload another 1,100 sites to towerco IHS.
The Indian giant, which has been seeking to cut its US$10bn debt load, will sell and…
Just a couple of weeks after agreeing to sell 4,800 towers in Nigeria to American Tower, Bharti Airtel said today it would offload another 1,100 sites to towerco IHS.
The Indian giant, which has been seeking to cut its US$10bn debt load, will sell and lease back the towers from IHS in Zambia and Rwanda under a 10-year renewable contract.
The full price tag has not been disclosed but, in a notice to the Lukasa Stock Exchange, Airtel said it would sell the Zambian towers for US$151m.
In early September, Airtel sold over 3,500 sites to Eaton in six African countries and, a couple of months before that, offloaded 3,100 towers to Helios in four nations.
The value of those two deals was not disclosed but American Tower said it paid US$1.05bn for the infrastructure in Nigeria.
For IHS, which was advised by UBS, the deal represents its fourth major acquisition this year and its tenth tower transaction overall.
The tower operator is already present in Zambia and Rwanda but its biggest market is Nigeria, where it will manage more than 15,000 sites once two previously-announced deals, with MTN and Etisalat, close. Overall, IHS will control over 21,000 towers across five African countries.
To finance the acquisitions and build more sites, IHS said last month it would raise up to US$2.6bn in equity and debt financing. New and existing shareholders will provide US$2bn while the remaining amount will be in the form of loans. Of those, US$200m will be provided by IFC.
