Cameroon,Cote Dlvoire,Nigeria : NIGERIA: A Syndicated Loan Facility of $202m for IHS [TendersInfo (India)]

The Nigeria-headquartered IHS, the company involved in cell-phone tower operating business, has announced that it has obtained a syndicated loan facility worth US$202million for accomplishing its acquisition purposes. The lenders consortium includes Ecobank Capital among others.

IHS will spend the funds for purchasing Cameroon and Cte d Ivoire-based 1757 base stations of MTN Group.

The company s CEO Issam Darwish has revealed that there was oversubscription of the facility. The lenders involved in this venture include UBA, Orabank, Bank of Africa, Banque Nationale d Investissement as well as Ecobank.

The facility includes a tranche of $62million in a five-year period in Cameroon as well as an additional seven-year tranche of $40million, while the overall facility in Cte d Ivoire stands at $100million which is a single five-year tranche.

The independent mobile tower operator now maneuvers almost 6000 towers in six markets in Africa and these are Ghana, Sudan, South Sudan, Cte d Ivoire and Cameroon. The company operates these towers either on a co-location format or via operations and maintenance agreement. But, IHS also has its individual towers in three of these countries.

In recent years, the African region has witnessed arrival of four key participants in this segment and these are American Tower Corp, Helios Towers and Eaton Towers, in addition to IHS.

The Group Chief Commercial Officer of HIS - Rob Gelderloos has revealed that the firm thinks that up to 50% of the 170 000 base stations developed by the African telecom operators may be contracted out by the coming three-five-year period considering increasing load on tariffs as well as on margins.