Earnings call: IHS Holding reported approximately $12.3 billion of contracted revenues

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE: IHS) has delivered a robust performance in the second quarter of 2024, demonstrating growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA, alongside a decrease in capital expenditures. The company has benefited from foreign exchange resets in their revenue contracts after the Naira devaluation and has successfully renewed and extended contracts with MTN across various African markets. Despite facing challenges such as the devaluation of the Naira and increased power generation costs, IHS has shown resilience with significant growth potential in Brazil, its second-largest market. The company’s updated guidance for 2024 reflects the negative impact of renewed contracts with MTN Nigeria but anticipates growth through colocations and amendments.

Key Takeaways

• IHS Holding reported increased revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and ALFCF, with decreased CapEx in Q2 2024.
• The company is seeing benefits from ForEx resets post-Naira devaluation and has $12.3 billion in contracted revenues.
• Contract renewals and extensions with MTN have been secured in Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and other markets.
• IHS built 136 new towers in Brazil, with a total of 294 for the year, highlighting Brazil’s growth potential.
• Despite a decline in revenue and adjusted EBITDA due to the Naira devaluation, the company saw an improvement in EBITDA margin.
• The consolidated net leverage ratio was at 3.9, within the target range of 3 to 4.
• Updated 2024 guidance anticipates a negative impact from MTN Nigeria contracts, with expectations for growth from colocations and amendments.

Company Outlook

• IHS Holding is focused on increasing operating profitability, reducing capital expenditures, and improving cash flow.
• The company is conducting a strategic review to unlock shareholder value and improve their governance framework.
• They expect to remain within their target leverage range for the year.
• Updates on Nigeria’s macroeconomic conditions and Brazil operations were provided.

Bearish Highlights

• The second quarter was impacted by the Naira devaluation, leading to a decrease in revenue and adjusted EBITDA compared to the previous year.
• Segment adjusted EBITDA decreased by 6%, with a margin of 71.6%.
• Renewed contracts with MTN Nigeria are expected to negatively impact results by $30 million to $35 million annually.

Bullish Highlights

• Strong organic growth in revenue was driven by FX resets, CPI escalations, and power.
• Growth in towers, tenants, and revenue in MENA due to new sites and escalations.
• Positive macro conditions in Brazil, despite FX headwinds, with declining interest rates and inflation.
• The company continues to see double-digit growth in LatAm, excluding Oi revenue.

Misses

• The company’s financial performance in Q2 was adversely affected by the devaluation of the Naira.
• Increased power generation costs contributed to the decrease in segment adjusted EBITDA.

Q&A Highlights

• CEO Steve Howden discussed growth aspirations in LatAm and the potential impact of Oi’s judicial recovery proceedings.
• Chairman Sam Darwish commented on the stability of margins in Nigeria and the shift away from power managed services in South Africa.
• Significant growth in data usage in Africa, especially in Nigeria, was noted, with carriers expected to continue network investments.
• Cost reduction initiatives using technology and AI are underway.
• EBITDA trajectory in Nigeria will consider macroeconomic conditions and contractual resets.

IHS Holding Limited’s second-quarter earnings call painted a picture of a company navigating complex market dynamics while maintaining a strategic focus on growth and efficiency. With a solid foundation in contracted revenues and a proactive approach to managing risks and leveraging opportunities, IHS Holding is positioning itself to continue its trajectory of growth in the face of macroeconomic challenges and evolving market demands.

InvestingPro Insights

IHS Holding Limited’s recent performance has captured investor attention, as reflected in the company’s significant return over the last week, with a price total return of 9.33%. This uptick is particularly noteworthy considering the broader context of the company’s stock price, which has experienced a notable decline of 58.64% over the past year. The current market capitalization stands at $1.09 billion, indicating a sizeable presence in the industry despite recent market challenges.

InvestingPro Tips suggest that IHS Holding’s valuation implies a strong free cash flow yield, which could be appealing to investors looking for companies with the potential to generate cash efficiently. Moreover, analysts predict the company will be profitable this year, a significant turnaround considering that the company was not profitable over the last twelve months.

The data underscores a challenging environment for IHS Holding, with a revenue decline of 8.36% over the last twelve months as of Q1 2024. This is in line with analyst expectations of a sales decline in the current year. Despite these headwinds, the company’s gross profit margin remains robust at 46.7%, showcasing its ability to maintain profitability in core operations.

For investors looking for more in-depth analysis, there are additional InvestingPro Tips available at https://www.investing.com/pro/IHS. These tips provide further insights into IHS Holding’s financial health and market position, which could be valuable for making informed investment decisions.

Full transcript – IHS Holding Ltd (IHS) Q2 2024:

Operator: Good day, and welcome to the IHS Holding Limited Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Results Call for the Three Month Period Ended June 30, 2024. Please note that today’s conference is being webcast and recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Naya Bermudez. Please go ahead.

Naya Bermudez: Thank you, operator. Thanks also to everyone for joining the call today. I’m Naya Bermudez, Senior Manager of Investor Relations here at IHS. With me today are Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO; and Steve Howden, our CFO. This morning we published our unaudited financial statements for the three month period ended June 30, 2024 with the SEC, which can also be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. We also issued a related earnings release, presentation and supplemental deck. These are the consolidated results of IHS Holding Limited, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IHS and which comprises the entirety of the Group’s operations. Before we discuss the results, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer set out at the beginning of the presentation on Slide 2, which should be read in full along the cautionary statements regarding forward-looking statements set out in our earnings release and 6-K filed as well today. In particular, the information to be discussed may contain forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors, some of which are beyond our control, are difficult to predict and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements or industry results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements or industry results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our other filings with the SEC. We’ll also refer to non-IFRS measures, including adjusted EBITDA that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business, and ALFCF, that we view as important in assessing the liquidity of our business. A reconciliation of non-IFRS metrics to the nearest IFRS metrics can be found in our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. And with that, I’d like to turn the call over to Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO.

Sam Darwish: Thanks, Naya, and welcome everyone to our second quarter 2024 earnings results call. We’re reporting solid performance on revenue, adjusted EBITDA and ALFCF, while CapEx decreased meaningfully. This quarter, we began putting the negative impacts of the January 2024 Naira devaluation in the rearview mirror as we started to realize more of the benefits of the ForEx resets in our revenue contracts and saw a significant step-up in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin from the first quarter. The reduction in CapEx reflects the actions we’re taking to generate more cash and narrow our focus to projects that we believe will deliver the highest returns, two of the main goals of our ongoing strategic review, which I will discuss in more detail shortly. We’ve made important progress on commercial matters in the quarter with the extension of our contract with MTN South Africa through 2034 and the renewal of contracts with MTN Rwanda, also through 2034. And most notably, just last week, we announced a significant milestone in our long-term commercial relationship with MTN in Nigeria. We renewed and extended all our tower contracts with MTN in Nigeria through 2032, covering nearly 13,500 tenancies and approximately 23,800 lease amendments. This also includes 1,430 of approximately 2,500 tenancies that were due to expire in 2024 and 2025, but will now remain with IHS Nigeria. Over the last month, we have renewed or extended all 26,000 tenancies with MTN in addition to approximately 26,000 lease amendments across six countries into the next decade. With the MTN renewals completed, we can now focus on value creation and operational efficiencies. We now have approximately $12.3 billion of contracted revenues with an average remaining tenant term of more than eight years. Let me also touch on some of our financial highlights in the quarter. We saw revenue increase by 4% and adjusted EBITDA increased by 35% from Q1 2024 as we saw our contract resets kick in. Organic growth for the quarter versus Q2 2023 was 69%. Group-wide, we added net 385 tenants, 1,566 lease amendments, and built 207 towers, including 136 in Brazil. For the remainder of the year, we expect strong performance in our KPIs as the underlying trends driving our business remain healthy and the higher adjusted EBITDA margin continues after the dip of Q1 margins emanating from the January 2024 devaluation in Nigeria. During the quarter, the average ForEx rate for the U.S. dollar to the Naira was NGN1,392. As the Nigeria ForEx market gradually stabilizes, we continue to see USD availability and more favorable conditions to source an upstream U.S. dollars to the Group. Turning to Slide 7. As you can see, we are in a great position having renewed and extended all tower contracts with MTN in Nigeria and across our other African markets. In Nigeria, we renewed nearly 13,500 tenancies through 2032, which includes 1,430 out of the approximate 2,500 sites that were due to expire in ’24 and ’25, bringing our total tenant count in Nigeria to over 25,000. Please remember, we also signed a multi-year 3,950 tenant rollout agreement with Airtel Nigeria in February, which also included a three-year contract extension. The agreement with MTN in Nigeria, together with the recent renewals between IHS and MTN Group across all six African markets covering approximately 26,000 tenancies, Nigeria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and South Africa, where we both do business demonstrates how the two companies are set to work collaboratively to continue delivering mobile connectivity across Africa. Building on our 20-plus year relationship as commercial partners, both companies will leverage our shared operational excellence and engineering expertise to meet the end users increasingly sophisticated data demands. Together, IHS Towers and MTN Group have a track record of navigating complex operating environments and challenging macroeconomic conditions to deliver connectivity crucial to economic growth and digital inclusion. I want to commend our Nigerian team and their commercial colleagues for their efforts to get this agreement across the line and find a solution that helps secure our long-term financial stability. The renewed contracts provide a more sustainable split between local and foreign currency and introduces a new diesel-linked component that better shares the risk of potential fluctuations in the value of the Naira and the cost of diesel. With the introduction of a power indexation element in Nigeria and the unwind of our power managed services in South Africa, we are now much more protected against energy price fluctuations as a company. The renewal is a testament to the valued relationship with MTN and our commitment to work together to mitigate the impacts of global macro conditions and broaden mobile connectivity through our critical infrastructure. We continue to believe in the vast opportunity in Nigeria and look forward to working with MTN to enable critical communication services and mobile connectivity, as well as address increasing data demands in this fast growing market. In addition to commercial milestones, we are making great progress across a number of our initiatives. Let’s turn to Slide 8 to look at some of the highlights. As it relates to our strategic review of unlocking shareholder value versus our existing suppressed valuation, we are starting to deliver on elements such as improving our governance framework, as evidenced by the positive outcome of our ’24 AGM and resolving our commercial matters as reflected by the comprehensive contract renewals with MTN. In addition, we continue to focus on increasing our operating profitability and substantially reducing our CapEx to improve cash flow generation. We are assessing group-wide costs and CapEx structures, including how we can introduce more technology, especially artificial intelligence, into our ways of working to help us realize efficiencies. During the quarter, we also reorganized our Brazilian operations, increasing the levels of integration between our tower business and fiber business. This will provide not only cost efficiencies but also speed to market benefits as well. We are beginning to see the impact of this overall efficiency improvements in our Q2 ’24 results and our ’24 guidance implies continuation of higher margins versus ’23. Additionally, we continue to examine our portfolio of markets to determine the right composition for IHS going forward. And as previously indicated, this will include raising proceeds with a target of $500 million to $1 billion. The capital raised from these initiatives will primarily be allocated to reduce debt, while also considering share buybacks and/or introducing a dividend policy. As a reminder, these initial targets do not rule out additional initiatives we are assessing in parallel in our pursuit of increasing shareholder value. Moving on to governance. As I just mentioned, we are pleased that the proposals to amend the company’s articles of association were approved by shareholders at the AGM held in June. The voting results mark a significant achievement for IHS, better aligning our governance framework with that of mature US-listed companies. With MTN, we remain engaged on any outstanding governance issues and anticipate a mutually agreeable resolution in due course. Moving to our balance sheet, which remains a top priority, we continue to remain comfortable as we actively pursue initiatives to extend maturities, manage interest expense and shift more debt into local currency. At the end of the quarter, we had $746 million of available liquidity. We continue to expect to remain within our target leverage range of 3 to 4 this year, albeit at the top end of the range. I’d now like to provide an update on Nigeria’s macro. Since the end of the first quarter, the Central Bank of Nigeria further increased the policy interest rate by 200 basis points to 26.75%, initially in May and then again in July. As the CBN continues to combat inflation and remains focused on price stability in the country. We remain cautiously optimistic as the ForEx market in Nigeria appears to have stabilized modestly with the Naira closing at NGN1,597 on August 9, 2024. We continue to see U.S. dollar availability in the country, which supported our sourcing of nearly $290 million year-to-date, of which we have upstreamed approximately $94 million to Group during and after the second quarter. Market conditions permitting, we expect to upstream more through the second half of 2024. Lastly, on LatAm, we completed the sale of our Peru subsidiary to SBA Communications (NASDAQ:) on April 30, 2024. And as noted earlier, we built 136 towers in Brazil during the quarter for a total of 294 towers year to date. We remain committed to Brazil, which is our second largest market and one of our fastest growing. We continue to drive strong operational results there and see significant ongoing growth opportunities. And with that, I will turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Howden: Thanks, Sam, and hello, everyone. Turning to Slide 10. As Sam mentioned here, we show our Q2 performance. As you see, both towers and tenants are up approximately 3% in Q2 ’24 versus Q2 ’23, while lease amendments again increased by double-digit percentages, positive signs of the fundamental underlying tenancy growth continuing across our key markets. The year-on-year financial performance in Q2 ’24, however, was impacted by the Naira devaluation from an average rate of NGN508 to the dollar in Q2 of last year to NGN1,392 in the second quarter of this year. Therefore, on a reported basis, revenue and adjusted EBITDA declined year-over-year. However, as indicated last quarter, we now see a meaningful step-up in profitability as our revenue contract FX reset kicked in following the impact of the January devaluation of the Naira. Specifically, in Q2, we saw revenue increase by 4% and adjusted EBITDA increased 35% from the first quarter of this year. Versus the second quarter of last year, revenue declined 20%, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 11.9% and ALFCF fell by 9.6%, in each case on a reported basis and driven largely by the impact of the devaluation more than offsetting the strong organic growth. However, our adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 57.6%, a notable improvement year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Our level of CapEx investment decreased by 73% in the quarter, driven by the significant pullback in CapEx across all our segments. And finally, our consolidated net leverage ratio increased to 3.9 times at the end of Q2, up 0.1 times versus Q1 of this year, and that’s consistent with the expected increase we flagged following the Nigeria devaluation in January. But we remain and expect to remain within our 3 to 4 times leverage target as guided. Moving to Slide 11, and I wanted to provide some more color on the updated contract structure with MTN and how we have de-risked our power exposure. On the left side, you see a comparison between our actual revenue by contract split for the second quarter 2024 and what it would have looked like after adjusting for new financial terms in the renewed contracts with MTN in Nigeria. Given those MTN in Nigeria agreements were signed in August 2024, post the quarter end, the impact of these changes are not included in the second quarter 2024 results. Despite the terms being effective from April 1, the initial impact will reflect in our third quarter results. The new structure provides what we believe is a more balanced split between foreign and local currencies and the newly introduced diesel-linked component acts as a hedge against diesel price and FX fluctuations. Our contracts have always had some level of shared risk and under the new terms there is a more balanced split whereby our USD exposure is reduced, but in return we no longer own the risk of diesel price fluctuations which is now passed on to MTN Nigeria through diesel indexation. It’s important to note that the USD component will continue to benefit from quarterly FX resets and annual U.S. CPI-linked escalations, and the local currency component will continue to benefit from local CPI-linked escalations now applied every six months rather than annually. The significant change on introducing power indexation to our use fees with MTN in Nigeria, together with the unbundling of the backup power contract with MTN in South Africa, now means that IHS has moved its business model to being significantly hedged against power across our footprint. All our country businesses are now predominantly either power pass-through or have power indexation elements within their use fees. We believe these changes have materially reduced the risk of our operating model. And moving on turning to our revenue on a consolidated basis, you can see how the continued devaluation turned a quarter of strong organic growth into a 20.3% decline. The Naira devalued 63.5% in Q2 ’24 versus last year, yet the business delivered organic growth of 69.3%, driven primarily by FX resets, CPI escalations and power. Fiber, new lease amendments, new colocation and new sites also contributed to organic growth this quarter and came from countries across our portfolio. The right side again shows the organic growth of each of our segments for the quarter, where our Nigeria segment grew approximately 105%, including a large benefit from FX resets. On Slide 13, you can see our consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins for the second quarter 2024. As discussed, the Naira devaluation drove a 20% decrease in reported revenue in the quarter despite the quarterly organic revenue growth of over 69%. That again demonstrated the strong top line growth trends of the business. In Q2 ’24, reported revenue includes a $15 million headwind quarter-over-quarter and a $478 million headwind year-over-year from the Naira devaluation, but it’s actually a net $159 million headwind after adjusting for the impact of FX resets over the past year. As we’ve previously noted, most of the FX resets on the USD denominated portion of our Nigeria contracts reset quarterly, and therefore our Q2 ’24 results now reflect the FX reset benefit from the late January devaluation. In the second quarter of ’24, adjusted EBITDA of $251 million decreased 12%, while our adjusted EBITDA margin of 57.6% was up 550 basis points from the prior year and up 1,330 basis points from last quarter. The year-over-year changes in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin primarily reflect the decrease in revenue, partially offset by a decrease in cost of sales, driven by a decrease in tower repairs and maintenance costs along with lower power generation costs. On Slide 14, we review our adjusted levered free cash flow. In the second quarter of 2024, we generated ALFCF of $67 million, a 10% decrease versus last year, primarily due to a decrease in cash from operations post Naira devaluation and an increase in net interest paid, partially offset by a decrease in maintenance CapEx. ALFCF cash conversion rate was 26.7%. And looking at CapEx in the second quarter of 2024, CapEx of $54 million decreased 73% year-on-year. The decrease was driven by lower capital expenditure across all our segments, with the decrease in Nigeria primarily driven by decreases related to Project Green and maintenance CapEx, while the decrease in SSA was primarily driven by a decrease in refurbishment CapEx. The decrease in LatAm and MENA was primarily driven by decreases related to new site CapEx, although we still retain a healthy level of new site build in Brazil. On the segment review on Slide 15, I want to add to Sam’s earlier comments on what we’re seeing in Nigeria. In May, the CBN raised interest rates by 150 basis points, followed by another 50 basis point increase in July, bringing the NPR to 26.7%, total of four rate hikes in 2024. These actions appear to have had a positive impact on Nigeria’s FX market with the August 9, U.S. dollar to Naira Bloomberg rate at NGN1,597 to the dollar. Most recently, the World Bank approved a $2.3 billion program for Nigeria as the government remains focused on stabilizing the economy with the aim of increasing dollar flow within the country, enhancing the attractiveness of Nigeria as a foreign direct investment destination and improving transparency in the money markets. There is still more to do, but as we — as a result of these actions, we’ve seen an increase in U.S. dollars in Nigeria and FX reserves in the country have increased to $34.2 billion at the end of June from $33.8 billion at the end of March. Since the FX environment adjusted in January and February, we were able to access nearly $290 million to settle U.S. dollar obligations locally in Nigeria and upstream $94 million to Group during and after this second quarter. We continue to expect to upstream more throughout the rest of the year. For IHS in Nigeria, second quarter revenue of $270 million decreased 26% year-on-year on a reported basis, reflecting that negative $478 million FX headwind year-over-year, more than offsetting the 105% organic growth, which was driven primarily by FX resets and escalations. Nonetheless, a meaningful step-up from last quarter. Our colocation rate improved to 1.6 times, up from 1.57 times in Q2 of last year. Lease amendments continue to be a strong driver of growth, increasing 6.8% year-on-year as our customers added additional equipment to our sites. Q2 ’24 segment adjusted EBITDA in Nigeria was $171 million, a 22% decrease from a year ago, but a 66% increase from last quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin was up 340 basis points to 63.6% given the reduction in cost of sales, primarily driven by a decrease in tower repairs and maintenance costs. In Sub-Saharan African segment, towers and tenants increased by 1.3% and 3.5%, respectively, versus this time last year, and revenue is impacted by the unwinding of our power managed services business in South Africa this quarter, whereby we now recognize the pass-through power revenue as net as opposed to previously gross revenue recognition and gross cost recognition. We flagged this in our original full year guidance prior to the agreement being completed, which it now has been. Therefore, revenue for the segment decreased by 12.3%, but its segment adjusted EBITDA increased 21.5%. In addition to the pass-through mechanics changing, the segment adjusted EBITDA also benefited from a decrease in cost of sales, driven by lower maintenance costs. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin increased 1,970 basis points to 70.7%, mostly as a result of the unwind agreement with MTN in South Africa this quarter, further de-risking the business model. In our LatAm segment, towers and tenants grew by 10.4% and 6.7%, respectively, versus this time last year, and revenue decreased by 3.9%, of which organic revenue growth increased 1.5% as a result of negative FX movements and a reduction in revenue recognition from Oi as we discussed last quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA, therefore, decreased by 6%, leading to a 71.6% segment adjusted EBITDA margin, 150 basis point decrease versus Q2 last year, which, again, reflects the decrease in revenue and increase in power generation costs. In Brazil, our second largest market with 7,951 towers, macro conditions notwithstanding the FX headwinds as the Brazilian real devalued against the dollar were mostly positive as both interest rates and inflation came down. In MENA, towers and tenants grew by 8.5% and 8.8%, respectively, while revenue increased by 12.7%, including 6.4% organic revenue growth, driven primarily by new sites and escalations. Segment adjusted EBITDA increased 14.5%, and the Q2 ’24 adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 55.4%. Onto Slide 17 and we’ll look at our capital structure and related items. And at June 30, 2024, we had approximately $4.2 billion of external debt and IFRS-16 lease liabilities. Of the $4.2 billion, approximately $2 billion represent our bond financing and other indebtedness includes $430 million that has been drawn down from the three-year bullet term loan that we have at the IHS Holding Limited level. As Sam mentioned, continuing to improve the strength and flexibility of our balance sheet is an important component of our strategic review. We’ve already undertaken and continue with various balance sheet initiatives to extend maturities, manage interest rate expense, swap dollar obligations into local currency where possible, and add flexibility to our capital structure. This includes the TowerCo and FiberCo debentures we signed in Brazil for approximately $54 million and $29 million, respectively, and plenty more initiatives to come over the second half of the year. Cash and cash equivalents increased to $446 million as of June 30. And in terms of where that cash is held, approximately 16% was held in Naira, that Nigerian business. We were able to upstream $94 million during and after the quarter as we mentioned. While we anticipate to upstream again in 2024, we do caution it remains to be determined if the increased dollar availability can be sustained. Consequently, from all these moving elements at the end of Q2 ’24, our consolidated net debt was approximately $3.7 billion and we had a consolidated net leverage ratio of 3.9 times, up 0.1 times versus the end of March ‘24. We expect leverage to remain within our target 3 to 4 times net leverage ratio this year, prior to the realization of any future disposals, at which time we expect the leverage to drop. Moving to Slide 18. We updated our 2024 guidance last week as a result of our renewed and extended contracts with MTN Nigeria. We anticipate that the agreement with MTN will negatively impact our results for fiscal year 2024 by approximately $30 million to $35 million. Although the contracts were signed in August 2024, they are effective April 1, 2024. And so on an annualized basis, the headwind is approximately $47 million. Despite the impact of revenue and EBITDA, we expect our business will continue to benefit from colocations and amendments. And with the reduced diesel price exposure, we expect we’ll benefit from more operating leverage. As a reminder, we completed the unwind of our power managed services agreement with MTN in South Africa in the quarter. But again, this does not impact our guidance as it had already been factored in previously. And finally, on Slide 19, on the left you can see revenue by reporting currency for Q2, whereas on the right we provide the breakout of revenue based on contract split. The bottom of the slide shows the average annual FX rate assumptions used in our 2024 guidance and are unchanged from last quarter. This now brings us to the end of our formal presentation. We thank you for your time today. And operator, please now open the line for questions.

Operator: Your first question comes from the line of Jim Schneider from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Jim Schneider: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to get a sense as to how you characterize the overall new lease activity in both Nigeria and your broader African profile. Any — I mean, you mentioned some activity. Do you feel like there is more of a positive kind of macro view at this point? And would you — at what point — any time in this year, would you expect that leasing activity to step-up or accelerate? Thank you.

Steve Howden: Hey, Jim. It’s Steve here. Yeah, certainly the quarter is demonstrating that the fundamental growth characteristics continue to be there. So if we think about the different buckets of growth we have right now in terms of new build sites, we did 207 in the quarter. Now a chunk of that is in LatAm, where we’ve decided to continue investing growth CapEx when we pulled back in Africa. But actually when you look at the colocation, which there was close to 400 in the quarter, and the lease amendments where there was 1,200 plus in the quarter, a lot of that’s actually being driven out of the African portfolio, scattered around a little bit. We had a good chunk of colocation in Rwanda in the quarter, where we had reached a new deal with one of the carriers there, some in Nigeria as well. A lot of the lease amendments are actually coming out of Nigeria, particularly South Africa, as we see the continued slow and steady 5G rollout in those two particular markets. So, yes, the signs still continue to look good. I don’t think we’ll get too ahead of ourselves in terms of knowing that the carriers are looking at their CapEx spend plans and trying to sort of rationalize where they can given how global macro is impacting everybody in the industry. But we still see kind of a steady growth in our key markets.

Jim Schneider: Thanks. And maybe as a follow-up, can you maybe just characterize where you are on some of your asset sale discussions with potential buyers? Are there any major deals that are sort of towards the later stages, maybe in the, the 7th to 9th innings, if you want to use a baseball analogy?

Steve Howden: Well, I’m a Brit. So I understand your baseball analogy, but I won’t get drawn into it too much. No, look, we don’t want to get too drawn into comments generally on that particular topic. We said last quarter in May that we were looking to raise $500 million to $1 billion of proceeds. We’ve reiterated that today. We gave ourselves a 12-month timeline back in May and so all of that is on track. There are discussions happening, but we’ll just leave it there for now and we’ll update people when there’s something concrete to discuss.

Jim Schneider: Thank you very much.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Jon Atkin from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Atkin: I think Cricket has a lot of innings, so 7th to 9th inning might actually qualify as early. But I’ll let you be the judge of that. So I was just interested, two things. On the strategic review, there’s a lot of flexibility that you talk about in terms of potential outcomes, capital allocation, fair buybacks, dividends and so forth. But you also talked about not ruling out further initiatives to continue increasing shareholder value, which we continue to assess in parallel. Can you talk a little bit about what might be behind that and what would drive you towards that decision? And then just more of a LatAm question. I noticed that amendments increased significantly and what’s driving that? Thanks.

Steve Howden: So I’ll comment first on the strategic review, then I’ll let Sam jump in and add a bit of flavor as well. And then I’ll come back to LatAm on the lease amendments. So in terms of the strategic review, look, the way we consistently characterize that is, we are looking at a whole broad variety of opportunities. We’re very, very focused on what can create value for shareholders. And whilst we wanted to provide some guidance as to how we were thinking about it last quarter when we set those targets, we also don’t want to rule out, potential other value-creating opportunities. Now, what we would also say is, things like the progress on the governance, things like progress with MTN renewal, that all sits squarely in our minds in terms of value creation. It might not be disposals of any type, but that sort of internal work, if you like, is also very important. So there’s lots of different strands to our thinking around value creation, the disposals we’ve characterized so far, what we’re targeting initially, and when we said, we will look to pay down some debt with that and we’ll think about other shareholder direct return methods after that. So all of that remains the same. But Sam, I don’t know if you want to add anything specific on that before I go back to LatAm.

Sam Darwish: Yeah. Hi, Jon. Look, I think it’s very important that we remain focused on shareholder value unlock. We really believe our — there is much more intrinsic value than the market is really awarding us. I mean, our free float at the moment is more than 20%. We have no major renewals anymore coming for at least eight years. We have more than $12.3 billion of contracted revenue, yet our market cap remains under $1 billion. So we will announce things as they happen. We’ll wait until the ninth inning to kind of like finish and then we’ll say what we’ve done. But for now, we will leave no stone unturned until the market realizes there is much more value to this company than it’s been awarded.

Steve Howden: And then, Jon, on your lease amendment question, so there wasn’t too much of a step-up on LatAm lease amendments. So there are about 196 now in Q2. They were 186 last quarter, albeit they were sort of 69 when you’re looking at the comparative quarter from a year ago. Where we did see some step-up in lease amendments this quarter versus Q1 was in the SSA segment, which was in South Africa, and that’s — that was 5G rollout in South Africa.

Jonathan Atkin: What’s driving the year-on-year step-up in LatAm?

Steve Howden: That’s simply customers taking more space on the towers. But, again, I wouldn’t overplay that just yet. It’s stepping up from 69 to 196, which doesn’t compare that kind of that sizeably to the 37,000 that we have across the portfolio.

Jonathan Atkin: And then just on LatAm, and then one more question to Sam’s answer, because I was going to ask that as well. But — so LatAm, some of your peers have noted that the judicial recovery proceedings around Oi will have a kind of a multi-year impact. And I know that you’re kind of less exposed given the tenant mix there, but any color there as to how your organic growth aspirations in the region might be affected by the Oi judicial recovery proceedings?

Steve Howden: Yeah. I mean, if you look at our LatAm growth rates from this time around, when you kind of unpack them for FX and those sorts of items, we were about 1% growth, but that’s because we backed out Oi this year versus last year. So actually, the organic growth rate is more like 12%, 13% for LatAm. So we continue to see, decent double-digit growth in the absence of, that Oi revenue, and we’ll see how that progresses. As you say, that’s tied to the judicial recovery plan that they have, and we’ve effectively taken it out of our numbers. So to the extent that there’s realizations from that, then that will all be upside.

Jonathan Atkin: And then lastly, Sam repeated what you put in the script around the contracted backlog. And as we think about a medium to longer term margin and EBITDA generation path, how would you bracket kind of the incremental margins associated with that backlog? And I know there’s a lot of moving pieces around FX and energy pricing, but any kind of brackets or guardrails to put on in terms of margins associated with that contracted revenue backlog?

Steve Howden: I mean — yeah, I mean, I’ll sort of take that. The way that $12.3 billion of contracted revenue works is that that’s the business on the sites today. So that effectively gets you to your 57% margin this quarter, or as we’re guiding to the full year, about 54% margin. So I triangulate people around 54% margins this year, which is what we’ve pretty consistently said through our guidance through the course of the last few quarters. But we are seeing — when you break it down into the quarter-on-quarter piece, we are starting to now see higher margins and we expect to be exiting the year in the mid- to high-50s. And we think that that sort of progression can continue through ’25 and into ’26. So we’re certainly targeting, and we said this for a long time, we’re targeting something beginning with a 6, so 60% in terms of EBITDA margins. That’s a couple of years away yet, but we’re trending in the right direction.

Jonathan Atkin: Thank you.

Sam Darwish: And we also believe, Jon, that — we also believe, John, that the fact that we have now a power indexation in Nigeria with our largest client with MTN, which we did not have before, in addition to the fact that power as a service has moved on from our business in South Africa, is going to make our margin way more stable going forward into the future.

Jonathan Atkin: Very clear. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Richard Choe from J. P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Richard Choe: Hi. I have two questions, one kind of macro level and then one more company-specific. What are you seeing in Nigeria and your other major markets on data usage? Is it growing at the rate that, I guess, you had expected? And then on — specifically for the company, as you kind of transition to more indexation and less of the power managed services, are there costs that could come out of the business? And maybe, talk a little bit about potential cost initiatives overall?

Steve Howden: Sure. Sam, do you want to take the data usage one? I’ll just cover the cost side of things first, but if you want to take the macro one. So Richard, you’re right. The initial areas to look at are obviously locally within the OpCos, which we’ve been doing as we’ve been transitioning those business models. And so that’s kind of been happening as we go along and you’ll see the realization of that in elements over this quarter a little bit, but then into next quarter as well. As it relates to further kind of cost initiatives, and that is also an element of our strategic review, if you like, which is looking at profitability around the group, including central cost structures. And we’re continuing to look at different ways that we can operate more efficiently. Some of that’s because of the shift in business model away from this power element, but some of it’s just new ways of working. We’re looking at trying to introduce more technology, trying to use artificial intelligence, such that we can be more efficient, more accurate, and, ultimately, reduce overall costs. So that’s kind of an ongoing element of the strategic review and will continue that for quite a period of time there. Don’t want to put any numbers on that just yet, but that is happening.

Sam Darwish: In terms of the market growth, we’re seeing massive growth on the African side, Richard. So, for example, in Nigeria, I believe, MTN reported recently more than 50% increase year-on-year in terms of data usage. I mean, these are the kind of numbers we’re seeing. So that runway remains there. LatAm is more modest, but again, data growth remains large.

Richard Choe: Right. So it seems like despite some economic headwinds or volatility, there’s — the growth in data has been pretty strong and at some point the carriers will have to keep investing in their networks?

Sam Darwish: They have to, in our opinion. They have no choice. I mean, to be able to meet the demands of the population, whether in terms of fintech adoption, in terms of smartphone adoption, in terms of new entries into new users adopting phones, it’s just one way traffic. At the moment what we’re seeing is global macro, local macro is putting a pressure on their CapEx cycle, but that pressure is cyclical and they just have to meet the demands at some point in time, which we believe sooner than later.

Richard Choe: Great. Thank you.

Operator: And your next question is from the line of Maurice Patrick from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Maurice Patrick: Yeah. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I’ve got a couple, please. The first one a follow a bit on from Richard’s question on identification and traffic growth. When I was on the Helios call last week, they were talking very — a very sort of upbeat message really around the operator need for densification, partly for traffic but also new coverage. And I think they were referring to it as here and now as well as the future. You seem to be a bit more cautious and I’m just keen to understand if that’s more to do with geographic mix, so more LatAm and Nigeria rather than differences between the companies. And the second question is on Nigerian EBITDA trajectory. I doubt you want to give 2025 outlooks quite yet, but investors are asking quite a lot around the moving parts of cost and revenues for next year in EBITDA. I guess you’re happy tailwind coming from CPI resets, you’ll have the tailwind from the increased tenancies in Airtel. You’ll have a — presumably a headwind from the lost 1,100 tenancies. So just if you could walk us through some moving parts, even if you can’t say you think EBITDA will go up or not in Nigeria next year. Thank you.

Steve Howden: Let’s talk about that last one first. So, Maurice, I mean, you’re right, we’re too early for 2025 metrics and guidance, but you have started to unpack some of the moving parts. Another element I would point you to is macroeconomically speaking, obviously the biggest driver for IHS in 2024 so far, and one looks like it’s going to be for the rest of ’24, was the Q1 devaluation. So obviously there was a significant dip in revenue and earnings in Q1 post the Naira devaluation, which has then now rebounded in Q2. But obviously as you drop that quarter of dip, let’s say, then you start to get a more even run rate through the back end of the year. So as you move forward into 2025 we’ll be having a good hard think about what our forward curve looks like, but certainly at this point in time, one would hope it doesn’t include any kind of form of step change, but let’s see. So that’s probably one area to look at. You’re absolutely right. In Nigeria, organic growth being driven by Airtel. MTN are continuing to do business by the way, so they’ll come through as well. We’re seeing plenty of traction in Brazil towards the back end of this year and into next year around new build sites, around colocation, around more lease up — excuse me, more lease amendments as 5G starts to roll out more seriously. I think as it relates to LatAm, the 5G take up while it’s there, I think it’s been a bit slower than people had originally thought, but it’s now starting to gather some pace. I think we’re going to see that come through into next year. So — and then you’re right, in terms of contractual resets, those will all flow through as usual. So those are some of the moving parts without us putting numbers on it yet. And obviously, it’s a bit early for that.

Maurice Patrick: Thanks. On the densification point?

Steve Howden: Yeah, densification point. I mean, I think it’s a little bit to do with different markets at different points in their technology cycle, right? And so I’m not sure you can draw a complete apples to apples across it. Our markets are largely 4G penetrated now and we’re sort of on that cusp of 5G. We’re starting to see it a little bit in Nigeria, but early days. We’re starting to see a bit of it in South Africa. I would still say early days, but more advanced than Nigeria. And as I just mentioned LatAm, it’s starting to flow now. So I think it’s more a question of where are we in the technology cycle of the given markets, recognizing that over the last few years we’ve continued to add thousands and thousands of lease amendments and colocations as well. Just keep in mind, Helios report those two metrics differently to how we do. We split them out, they merge them. So just keep that in mind.

Maurice Patrick: Helpful. Just one very small question, if I may. Just on the CapEx guidance, you reiterated the $300 million and $370 million. I think the first half you’re running at $110 million, so well below that run rate. I don’t think you’ve got a huge step-up in BTS. What’s some — what’s driving the kind of significant 2H, 1H based on the CapEx?

Steve Howden: It’s a fair point. We’ve got a little step-up in BTS CapEx as we’re delivering our pipelines, and a little step in fiber as well. But we’ll see how that guidance go — that guidance number goes. We’ve been looking at whether that’s the right metric to retain or maybe trim slightly, and we’ll look at that again as we go through Q3. We are certainly trending at the bottom end of that range. Yes.

Maurice Patrick: Thanks so much.

Operator: And that brings us to the end of the IHS Holdings Limited second quarter 2024 earnings results call. Should you have any questions, please contact the Investor Relations team via the e-mail address [email protected]. The management team, thank you for your participation today and wish you a good day.

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