Fast-growing African tower management company IHS has secured a further US$130m in the second tranche of its latest fund-raising exercise, it said on Thursday.
The capital raised is in addition to the $490m of new debt ($70m) and equity ($420m) announced last month, and is with existing investors, IHS said. “IHS will use the funds to accelerate its plans for expansion into new and existing markets.”
In early March, IHS announced it was raising the $490m in fresh capital from existing shareholders alongside new investors Goldman Sachs, the IFC Global Infrastructure Fund and African Infrastructure Investment Managers. Senior debt is being provided by Standard Chartered Bank for expansion of IHS’s business in Zambia.
The additional funding will be used for acquisitions and investment in new telecommunications infrastructure, the company said in a statement at the time.
IHS describes itself as Africa’s largest independent telecoms infrastructure company by the number of towers managed.
It has raised more than $1,6bn in funding in the past 12 months as mobile operators across the continent increasingly look to sell their towers to third-party management companies in order to reduce costs as markets become more competitive.
IHS owns and manages 10 500 towers on behalf of mobile operators in Nigeria, Zambia, Rwanda, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media