TowerXchange who’s who in African and Middle Eastern Towers

TowerXchange takes a deep dive into the African tower industry, providing the most comprehensive directory to date of the key MNOs, towercos, investors and advisory firms active in the market.

African Infrastructure Investment Managers: Joint venture between Macquarie and Old Mutual with capital at work in IHS.

Africell: One of Africa’s new entrant MNO success stories, Africell have used a low cost, rapid rollout strategy, favouring co-locations over new tower build. When last we spoke to them, in the DRC Africell has not built a single tower but has captured 20% market share by co-locating on 180 Helios towers. With a presence in the DRC, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Uganda, Africell have not conducted any tower sales to date but have inherited a network from Orange in Uganda where towers had been sold to Eaton Towers.

Africa Mobile Networks: Rural towerco with an interesting business model that targets either tier one or tier two anchor tenants with a proposition that combines active and passive infrastructure and which focuses on rural areas of countries with less mature coverage. AMN broke ground in Benin in 2014, is now in four countries and expects to have a footprint in seven countries by the end of 2016 including Cameroon, the DRC, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Guinea.

Airtel: African subsidiary of Indian operator, Bharti Airtel with a presence in 15 African countries and having sold towers in ten (figure one). The company has sold towers to each of the big four African towercos, divesting their portfolios to Helios in the DRC and Congo B, to American Tower in Nigeria, to IHS in Rwanda and Zambia and to Eaton in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Kenya and Uganda. The operator’s most recent deal to sell their Tanzanian towers to American Tower has been cancelled and as yet there are no reports of the towers returning to market.

In the five countries where Airtel retains its towers, the operator has been exploring potential opportunities with ESCOs, although has reportedly recently issued an RFP for passive infrastructure maintenance in at least two of its markets.

Albright Capital Management: Chaired by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Albright is an investor and advisory firm dedicated to the emerging markets and an investor in Helios Towers Africa.

Al Karama Towers: Newly formed Senegalese towerco, backed by M&A Capital, which has just agreed to buy Expresso Telecom’s 450 sites in the country. The sale and leaseback transaction also includes first right of refusal on new build for Expresso, with the operator planning to add an additional 200-250 sites in the next twelve months as part of the regulatory mandate for MNOs to increase coverage to underserved areas of the country. Al Karama Towers has an appetite for further towers in Senegal as well as those of tier two MNOs in other countries.

American Tower: The world’s largest independent commercial towerco with a global tower count approaching 150,000, American Tower have a portfolio of 10,797 towers in Africa spread across Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Uganda (figure two).

In addition to having acquired portfolios from MNOs, 2016 saw American Tower acquire Eaton Towers’ South African subsidiary. Further towerco M&A is expected from American Tower as investors in their privately owned rivals (Eaton, IHS and Helios) look for an exit in the next 18 months. What’s more, American Tower is understood to be competing with Eaton Towers for Telkom’s tower portfolio in Kenya, a move which would mark the towerco’s entry in a fifth African market (after their agreement to acquire Airtel’s Tanzanian sites was cancelled).

Whilst new build has been limited, American Tower has commenced building towers in Nigeria and also plans significant investment in energy infrastructure across its markets.

Analysys Mason: Marco Cordoni and his team at Analysys Mason are among the ‘go-to-guys’ for tower market analysis and due diligence on a global basis.

Antosc: Angola’s first towerco in which managed service provider Anglobal has a 35% share. The towerco was formed in response to new legislation introduced in 2016, preventing new towers being build in close proximity to existing sites and thus mandating MNOs to share infrastructure in order to expand their networks

Atlas Towers: US towerco with a growing footprint in the South African market, having added more towers than any other towerco in the country taking their site count up to 343 as of Q3 2017. Atlas has ambitions to enter other sub-Saharan African markets - watch this space.

BCTek: Nigerian towerco with a 20 year contract to manage and market a portfolio of 700 towers originally built as a surveillance network, over 80% of which are police compounds.

Blackstone: Serial towerco investor currently working with Phoenix Tower International in CALA. Recently evaluated investment opportunities in one of Africa’s privately owned towercos.

Blue Sky Towers: Privately owned towerco with a portfolio of 20 sites in the western and southern region of South Africa. Part of Merlin Project Services, an MSP which has been operating in the country for 18 years

BuyIn: 50/50 procurement joint venture between Deutsche Telekom and Orange

Capital Group Private Markets: Private equity fund focus on emerging markets with a diverse portfolio including investments in Eaton Towers.

The Carlyle Group: Private equity and alternative asset management firm with money at work in Indonesian towers. Yet to invest in Africa.

Cell C: South African operator who monetised their towers back in 2010 with a sale to American Tower. Cell C maximised upfront capital in their deal with the towerco in order to raise capital for rollout and to grab market share, but in doing so agreed a high leaseback rate which the company has been unhappy with. Cell C have since made their decision to rebuild their own sites, adding 600-800 each year for the next five years in order to regain control of their passive infrastructure.

Citi: One of the world’s leading tower transaction advisory groups can be found within the TMT team at Citi.

Coast to Coast: One of South Africa’s smaller independent towercos with a portfolio of 18 towers

Comco: Small South African towerco

Communication Towers Nigeria: Nigerian towerco which claims to have 500 cell sites across all 36 states. Given the current appetite for Nigerian towers, they could represent an attractive acquisition target.

Connect Africa: Company focussed on bringing connectivity to rural areas in Africa. Most recently Connect Africa has deployed a series of Wi-Fi hotspots in rural areas across Zambia. These base stations costs less than $10,000 and are partly funded by advertising.  Connect Africa has over 200 sites deployed successfully with three operators.

Convergence Partners: Firm focussed on early-stage investments in the African TMT sector. Had looked at an investment in the tower industry a few years ago.

Credit Suisse: Debt providers playing a key role in the African tower industry.

Delmec: The tower experts in consultation and engineering, providing global solutions to operators, towercos and regulators on standards, guidance and due diligence for portfolio management. Engaging audit, assessment and analysis for structural enhancement, capacity and maintenance as individual activities or by way of managed services.

Development Partners International: Private equity fund focussed on Africa with money at work in Eaton Towers.

Digital Bridge: Serial tower entrepreneurs Mark Ganzi and Ben Jenkins are building another empire having sold their last venture, GTP, to American Tower for US$4.8bn. Digital Bridge is an investment vehicle through which stakes are invested in towercos around the world. Digital Bridge recently appointed Phil Cooper as Managing Director EMEA and were known to have had an interest in the Saudi tower processes..

Djezzy: Algerian operator in which Russian headquartered VEON (formerly VimpelCom) has a 49% stake (with the remainder being held by the Algerian government). Whilst VEON has initiated tower sale processes across multiple markets it the CIS (and cancelled a tower process in Russia) there are currently no plans to divest their Algerian towers, with limits on foreign direct investment limiting the number of parties who would be interested in such a transaction.

Eagle Towers: Private towerco with a portfolio of 50 towers in South Africa.

Eaton Towers: Africa’s fourth largest towerco with a portfolio of 5000 sites across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Niger and Uganda having acquired sites from Airtel (in all five countries) Orange and Warid in Uganda and entered into a MLL arrangement with Vodafone in Ghana. In 2016, the towerco reached an agreement to acquire 2000 Mobinil (now Orange) sites in Egypt although the deal was cancelled. The towerco is known to be competing with American Tower to purchase Telkom Kenya’s ~1000 sites.

Eaton had built a successful portfolio of 300 towers (and a pipeline of 1000 further sites) in South Africa before the opco was sold to American Tower. Like Africa’s two other large privately owned towercos, Eaton’s investors are known to be looking for an exit in the next 12-18 months with both an IPO and a strategic sale being explored.

Econet: The leading MNO in Zimbabwe (and with a footprint in Burundi and Lesotho) Econet have been under pressure for the Zimbabwean government to share its towers. Econet own about 1500 of Zimbabwe’s 2700 sites. The operator is also in the process of forming its own ESCO, Distributed Power Africa, to initially manage power on its own sites and eventually with a goal of servicing other MNOs.

Emerging Capital Partners: Private equity fund focussed on Africa; investors in IHS.

Etisalat: UAE’s leading MNO with a presence in Saudi Arabia (Mobily) and Egypt (Etisalat Misr) and a footprint in a further 15 African countries via its 53% stake in Maroc Telecom. Etisalat had previously monetised its Nigerian opco’s towers (EMTS), selling 2691 sites in two tranches to IHS Towers, before the opco was taken over by a consortium of banks after defaulting on loan repayments following an economic downturn and currency devaluation in the country. In Saudi Arabia, after having previously initiated and then cancelled a tower sale, Mobily is now in the process of forming a joint venture towerco with number one operator, Saudi Telecom Company. The two parties have appointed an advisor and are examining the possibility of involving a third party in the venture.

Ethos Private Equity: Private equity firm with money at work in Eaton Towers since May 2015.

Expresso Telecom: Tier two MNO Expresso with a footprint in Sudan, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal has just agreed their first tower sale, announcing a SLB agreement with M&A capital for their 450 towers in Senegal.

EY: TMT strategy and corporate finance advisory team with extensive experience of advising on tower transactions.

Fanasia: Iranian tower builder with experience of building over 400 sites. Become the first independent telecom tower company in Iran with 27 operational sites before forming Iranian Towers, a new towerco with number one and number three Iranian operators MCI and Rightel also shareholders.

FMO: Dutch development bank 51% government owned, 49% by commercial banks and financial institutions. Have invested in African towercos.

Globacom: Operator which has to date been disinclined to sell towers and has yet to widely share their assets. A sale by Glo could be highly attractive for towercos, if they did come to market with the company having a footprint in key markets including Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire where towercos already have a presence. While a tower divestiture remains unlikely, trying to predict Mike Adenuga’s next move is a fool’s errand!

Global Tower: MNO Turkcell’s wholly owned infraco managing the company’s tower portfolios in Turkey, the Ukraine (via UkrTower), Belarus (BelTower) and Northern Cyprus. In September 2016 Global Tower postponed their planned IPO at the eleventh hour. The towerco is known to have an appetite for tower portfolios in MENA.

Goldman Sachs: Experienced advisors on tower transactions and lenders to towercos. Investment arm has a minority stake in IHS.

Gyro Towers: South African MNO Telkom’s new carve out towerco

Hardiman Telecommunications: A unique consultancy equally capable advising on engineering and operational issues as they are on commercial strategy and corporate finance. Extensive experience advising on both the buy-side and sell-side in tower transactions.

Helios Investment Partners: Investment firm making private equity investments in Africa, with a primary focus on the sub-Sahara region. Helios’ portfolio companies operate in 35 African countries across a range of industry sectors, with telecom infrastructure and services playing an important part. Founder investors in Helios Towers Africa and previous investors in HTN Towers (prior to the towerco’s sale to IHS).

Helios Towers Africa: Africa’s third largest towerco, the company completed its first major tower transaction in 2010, acquiring 750 towers from Tigo in Ghana and have since completed five further major tower transactions establishing a footprint in Congo Brazzaville, the DRC and Tanzania. The first towerco to enter each of its jurisdictions, the company remains the sole towerco in the latter three markets and possesses a strong urban presence in Ghana where it competes with American Tower and Eaton Towers. The company now owns a total of 6,447 towers across the four countries, having added build-to-suit towers and smaller bolt-on acquisitions to its portfolio.

HOI-MEA: Egyptian managed service provider and tower manufacturer which also owns a portfolio of 50 towers in the country built for Vodafone and Etisalat.

Hotspot Network: Nigerian towerco, in the process of being acquired by IHS Towers, which built a network of 160 sites through build to suit contracts with Airtel and Etisalat.

HTN Towers: One of the oldest towercos in Africa, HTN Towers (formerly Helios Towers Nigeria) built a portfolio of 1,211 towers with a tenancy ratio per live tower of 2.2, turning over US$73.3mn with EBITDA of US$31.7mn in FY2014 before their sale to IHS.

IHS Towers: Towerco with the largest African portfolio, totaling 22,961 towers across Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Zambia, Rwanda and Nigeria, with over 60% of its towers in the latter. The towerco has completed transactions with Airtel (Rwanda & Zambia), Etisalat (Nigeria), Orange (MLL arrangement in Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire) and MTN (in all five countries); in 2016 IHS also acquired rival Nigerian towerco HTN Towers and their 1,211 sites.

IHS have joined forces with Towershare to enter the Saudi market, with the consortium in exclusive negotiations with Zain to acquire the operator’s portfolio of 8,000 sites

Privately owned, IHS’ investors include MTN with a 29% stake, Wendel and the IFC. The company’s investors are gearing up for an exit through either an IPO or strategic sale although turbulent times in the NIgerian market have made for a challenging year in 2017.

International Finance Corporation (IFC): The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group, the world’s leading DFI. The IFC has invested around half a billion dollars in debt and equity into eight towercos across emerging markets, with an objective to double that total investment by 2018.

Infratel: Rural infraco in the DRC whose equipment is on 800 cell sites.

ING Bank: Leading Dutch bank with considerable experience of providing debt finance to the tower industry.

Intrepid Advisory Partners: Advisory firm established by Daniel Lee, the “Rainmaker” of the African tower industry – Dan advised on 11 of the first 13 deals to close in Africa.

Investec Bank: South African based bank providing debt and advisory services to the tower industry.

J.P. Morgan: Leading TMT advisory team with extensive experience in towers, including some of the landmark European transactions.

Korek Telecom: Iraq’s fastest growing MNO with a portfolio of 3500 sites. Significant network deployment planned following a turbulent time in the war torn country.

KPR Consult: Renowned ‘tower doctors’ – go-to guys for structural / technical due diligence, improvement capex planning, decommissioning and just about anything to do with tower design and maintenance.

Lap GreenN: Operator who has tried to monetise towers in Uganda but has been hindered by trading restrictions placed on the Libyan owned parent. The company also has a presence in Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

Lazard: Investment advisory firm with extensive experience in the tower industry. Has represented Orange in most tower transactions.

Liquid Telecom: Leading independent data, voice and IP provider in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa.

Macquarie Group: Serial towerco investors, with capital at work in Arqiva,  Russian Towers, Axicom (formerly Crown Castle Australia), Mexico Tower Partners and Viom Networks (now part of ATC India). Macquarie also has an excellent TMT advisory practice with experience of advising on tower transactions.

Maroc Telecom: Moroccan headquartered MNO in which Etisalat has a 53% stake. Has expressed little interest in divesting their towers to date and remains conservative in regards to infrastructure sharing. In addition to their presence in Morocco, Maroc Telecom has strong West African presence, having opcos in nine African countries where it operates under the brands Moov (Benin, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Togo), Onatel (Burkina Faso) Sotelma (Mali) Mauritel (Mauritania) and Gabon Telecom (Gabon).

mCel: Following long standing financial difficulties at State-owned mCel, the company had appointed Barclays to oversee a sale of its ~1,000 towers to offset debt, although talks seem to have stalled with limited towerco interest. The government has since announced the planned merger of mCel with fixed-line incumbent TDM, in a bid to transform the loss-making entities into a single, more profitable unit.

MCI: Iran’s largest MNO with a portfolio of 21,000 sites. In the process of forming a joint venture towerco - Iranian Towers - with Fanasia (Iranian towerco) and Rightel (Iran’s number three MNO)

MENA Towers: Early stage towerco with offices in the UAE, Cote d’Ivoire and Pakistan.

Millicom/ Tigo: Millicom / Tigo undertook the first pioneering tower transactions with Helios Towers Africa in Ghana, DRC and Tanzania from 2010-11, but the group hasn’t done a SSA tower deal since.

In Chad, Millicom has signed its first agreement with an ESCO, whilst in Tanzania the company has recently entered into a RANsharing agreement with the two other MNOs to increase coverage in rural areas.

Millicom owns, and is in the process of selling, a 24% stake in Helios Towers Africa snd has reportedly hired advisors to exit the African market with the sale of its Senegalese opco announced in 2017.

Mobily: Number two Saudi operator in which Etisalat has a 27% stake. Had been in the process of forming a joint venture with number one operator, Saudi Telecom Company, to more effectively manage their combined network of 26,000 towers, however the two operators are currently reconsidering all their options before proceeding

Mott MacDonald: Digital Infrastructure team has extensive experience of advising on tower transactions and investments.

MTN: MTN, with a presence in 20 African countries, has monetised their towers in seven – representing the majority of their most attractive portfolios. The company has raised around US$2.5bn to date and retained equity in selected markets. MTN commenced their passive infrastructure monetisation strategy in 2010-11 with the formation of joint venture towercos with American Tower in Ghana and Uganda, in which MTN retained 49% equity. This was then followed up with sale and leasebacks of 100% of the equity in their towers in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda and Zambia – this time with IHS as the counterparty. In Nigeria, MTN formed a joint venture with IHS in which it retained a non-controlling 51% stake. In February 2017, MTN exchanged its 51% stake in the joint venture for additional shareholding at IHS group level, taking its equity stake in IHS Holdings from 15% to 29% and simplifying its ownership structure in the process.

MTN’s two most significant portfolios they retain are in South Africa (approximately 9000 towers) and Iran (13,000 towers as part of MTN-Irancell). MTN had explored the sale of their South African towers to American Tower back in 2013 and they remain an attractive acquisition target. In Iran, MTN’s two competitors have joined forces to create a new JV towerco, Iranian Towers however MTN has opted to not be a part of this for now.

The remainder of MTN’s tower portfolios are somewhat smaller and less likely targets for towercos. As an alternative, the operator has begun to examine outsourcing the energy management on sites to ESCOs and whilst TowerXchange are not aware of any pilot projects, we don’t expect it to be long before RFPs start to emerge.

Ooredoo: Ooredoo with a presence in Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Tunisia has preferred to retain towers but has been exposed to deep partnerships with towercos in Myanmar which may influence their strategy as the MENA tower market starts to open up. Back in early 2016, Ooredoo launched a RANsharing agreement with Tunisia Telecom to minimise the costs of their network rollout.

Orange: Orange has recently strengthened their position in central and western Africa with the acquisition of Millicom’s local opco in the DRC (whose towers had previously been sold to Helios Towers Africa), Airtel’s opcos in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone and Liberia’s Cellcom. In East Africa, the MNO has recently exited the market in Kenya, selling their stake in Telkom Kenya to Helios Investment Partners.

To date, Orange has only agreed deals with towercos in three markets, Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire (where the MNO entered into a MLL agreement with IHS) and Uganda (where they sold 300 sites to Eaton); their 2016 deal to sell 2000 of their Egyptian towers to Eaton was cancelled. It had been rumoured that the MNOs towers in Senegal (Sonatel) were coming to market under an MLL deal structure, bundled with less attractive portfolios in Mali and the Guineas however such rumours have since subsided. Orange has started to explore ESCO projects, awarding 250 sites to Greenwish Partners in the DRC and in final negotiations with ENERGY VISION in Burkina Faso over 120 sites, with further RFPs known to have been issued across several other countries.

Figure ten: Orange’s footprint and history of tower sales

Pan African Towerco: New towerco being formed in Cote d’Ivoire

PowerCom: PowerCom, owned by MNO Telecom Namibia, is Namibia’s first dedicated infrastructure player. Managing a portfolio of 300 towers, the company has ambitions to integrate further assets into its portfolio and in the long term plans to bring solar to its sites to make use of the country’s abundant sunshine.

Pro High Site Communications: South African towerco with a portfolio of eleven towers.

Providence Equity: Communications and media investment specialists with capital at work in Indus Towers (India), Grupo Torresur (Brazil) and KIN (Indonesia). Had expressed an interest in Middle Eastern tower sales back in 2016.

Pula Towers: Botswana’s first towerco

RIT Capital Partners: Chaired by Lord Rothschild, RIT Capital Partners is an investment trust, listed on the London Stock Exchange with a widely diversified portfolio, including an investment in Helios Towers Africa.

Safaricom: Kenyan MNO, possessing Vodafone as a shareholder, dominates its the Kenyan mobile market. Whilst the company considers its towers too strategic to sell, Safaricom has for some time been swapping or leasing their tower portfolio, by far Kenya’s largest and most extensive, to MNOs and other tenants.

Saudi Telecom Company: Market leading operator in KSA which had been in the process of forming a joint venture with number two operator, Mobily to bring efficiencies to their combined network of 26,000 towers; plans for the joint venture now appear to be on hold. Saudi Telecom Company also has a footprint in Bahrain and Kuwait where it operators under the Viva brand.

SBA Communications: Publicly listed US towerco with over 25,000 towers in North and South America. Has a potential interest in Africa.

SEALTowers: Start-up Kenyan towerco focussed on low cost compact tower site solutions and hybrid power innovations. Expect to have 500 sites built by Q3 2018

SENTECH: South African broadcast towerco with a portfolio of 340 sites

Smile: LTE pioneer, Smile, with a presence in major cities in the DRC, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda rely primarily on co-location on third party towers in order to rollout their network.

Sonatel: See Orange

Soros: Quantum Strategic Partners (QSP) is a private investment vehicle, managed by Soros Fund Management LLC. QSP focuses globally on investments in several strategies, including capital-intensive start-ups, buyouts, and growth equity transactions. Investors in Helios Towers Africa.

Standard Bank: Bank with a presence in 20 sub-Saharan countries, Standard Bank has extensive experience in the tower industry, most recently completing a US$95mn equivalent upsizing of the syndicated term loan facilities for Helios Towers to finance its next phase of expansion in Tanzania.

Standard Chartered: South African bank with extensive experience providing debt and advisory services to the telecoms sector.

SWAP: Another claimant to the title of Africa’s first towerco, SWAP owns 702 Nigerian towers which were being managed and marketed by HTN Towers, until their acquisition by IHS, with IHS now resuming responsibility for the towers

TAP Advisors: Boutique M&A and investment advisory firm with long history of advising on tower deals.

TASC Towers: Towerco which had entered into exclusive negotiations with Zain to acquire their 8,000 Saudi sites. The deal has since lapsed

Telkom Kenya: Orange recently announced the sale of their 70% stake in Telkom Kenya to Helios Investment Partners. Telkom Kenya’s 2013 Manage with License to Lease (MLL) arrangement with Eaton Towers governing 1,000 towers was subsequently cancelled. Telkom’s towers have now come to market with both Eaton and American Tower competing to acquire the portfolio.

Telkom South Africa: South African MNO with just 2.9% mobile market share in the country. Telkom had an on/off tower sale but have recently announced the formation of their own towerco, Gyro Towers to maximise the profitability of their sites.

Tigo: See Millicom

Tilmann Global Holdings: Investor with broad appetite for towerco investments anywhere from early stage opportunities (where the company has been involved in Build to Suit programs with Eaton Towers in Africa and Apollo Towers in Myanmar) to sale and lease backs in mature markets of thousands of sites.

TowerCo of Madagascar: The only towerco in Madagascar, Towerco of Madagascar (TOM) have a portfolio of 900 sites in the country; by the end of 2017 they forecast this number to be over 1000 sites.

The company is part of the Axion Group of companies, owned by Hassanein Hiridjee, which also includes TELMA (the number one operator in Madagascar) and EDM, the national electricity company. TOM has further extended its presence into the Indian Ocean managing towers from the Axion Group after the group acquired the mobile branch of Outremer Telecom in La Reunion and Mayotte and the second mobile license in Comoros.

The company is extensively reviewing alternative energy options, including the pilot of a wind project in Madagascar.

Towershare: Dubai headquartered towerco which recently sold its portfolio of 800 sites in Pakistan to edotco. The company has agreed the acquisition of Zain’s 1,600 sites in Kuwait (with the transaction expected to close imminently) and is currently in exclusive negotiations to acquire the operator’s Saudi sites, with IHS as a partner

Unitel: Largest of Angola’s MNOs with two thirds of the market share in the country and a portfolio of 1,700 sites.

Viettel: Africa’s most aggressive new entrant, Vietnamese military backed Viettel had initially seemed reluctant to accelerate time to market by leveraging co-location. However they have since reached co-location agreements with IHS in Cameroon (where they operate as Nexttel) and Helios Towers in Tanzania (where they operate as Halotel), the latter of whom attracted ~1,000 co-locations. The company also has a footprint in Mozambique (Movitel) and Burundi (Lumitel) and is rumoured to be considering entering Nigeria.

Vodafone/  Vodacom: Apart from an early ‘manage with license to lease’ (MLL) deal in Ghana with Eaton Towers and the sale of 1,149 Tanzanian towers to Helios Towers Africa in 2013 (where Vodacom acquired a 24.5% stake in Helios Towers Tanzania), Vodacom and its parent company, Vodafone  consider their tower assets too strategic to divest.  Under the Vodacom brand, the company has a presence South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho and a controlling stake in Safaricom in Kenya. Vodafone is present in Egypt. Vodacom South Africa runs what is effectively an in-house tower company, with around 9,500 towers and a tenancy ratio of around 1.8.

Figure eleven: Vodafone, Vodacom and Safaricom’s African footprint

Wendel: Family fund, leading investor in IHS.

Yield Capital Partners: Investment advisors involved with Helios Towers Africa.

Zain: Operator who has agreed the sale of its 1,600 Kuwaiti towers to Towershare and who is exclusive negotiations with a consortium involving Towershare and IHS Towers to sell their 8,000 Saudi towers. Neither transaction is yet closed, although the Kuwait is expected to close imminently. The company also has operations in Iraq, Sudan, Bahrain and Jordan but has sold most of their African operations to Airtel.

Figure twelve: Tower portfolios of Africa’s big four towercos

Advance apologies: we’re bound to have missed one or two key stakeholders in African & Middle Eastern towers – if so we’d like to know as we’re on a mission to assemble everyone at the 5th Annual TowerXchange Meetup Africa & Middle East on October 3-4 in Johannesburg! If you feel your company should be profiled in the TowerXchange who’s who in African & Middle Eastern towers, please email Laura Graves, Managing Director, EMEA, TowerXchange, at: lgraves@towerxchange.com