MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, has opened negotiations with the Board members of IHS Towers on the acquisition of the 75% equity in the telecoms infrastructure company for an estimated value of $2.76 billion.
A news report from Reuters on Thursday indicated that the telecoms company was negotiating the acquisition of the IHS Holdings based on its closing price at the New York Exchange.
The news medium reported: “Based on the company’s latest closing price on the New York Stock Exchange, the potential transaction values IHS at approximately $2.76bn.”
MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Mupita, had hinted about the latest deal last year in order to strengthen the telco’s infrastructure networke for improved services.
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He clarified: “The renewal of the various contracts across our markets into the next decade put MTN operations in the respective markets onto a more sustainable footing.
“We remain focused on ensuring our networks are well invested, have high availability, and have the headroom to meet the growing and structural demand for data going into the future.
“These renewals are key to those priorities. We look forward to working constructively with IHS on the outstanding governance issues now that commercial arrangements have been concluded”, Mupita added.
According to the MTN Group, its offer on the HIS Towers’ infrastructure acquisition will be based on IHS’ most recent market valuation.
While confirming that that discussions remain ongoing and that no binding agreement has been reached, MTN maintained that if the ongoing negotiations does not result in a deal, it would explore other ways to unlock value from its existing shareholding in the telecom infrastructure company based on its capital allocation framework.
It would be recalled that the MTN Group had in 2014 acquired 25 per cent stake in IHS Towers when it sold most of its tower assets across several African markets to IHS as part of an infrastructure deal.
