MTN Takes Away Nigerian Tower Operations from IHS

By Adedapo Adesanya

A new company will handle the Nigerian tower operations of MTN Group, a leading telecommunications firm in Africa, a statement from the organisation has confirmed.

In a filing on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, MTN said its current deal with IHS Holding Limited will expire in 2024, and from 2025, American Tower Corporation (ATC) will take over the lease of approximately 2,500 of its network sites in Nigeria.

MTN said ATC was “selected as the preferred tower company for those sites based on its superior bid submission” after a review of the bids received for the tower contract.

This development comes amid a boardroom crisis between IHS Towers and MTN Group over MTN’s request for more control of the tower company.

Last year, MTN completed a sale-and-lease-back deal with IHS to take over more than 5,700 of its tower sites in South Africa.

Since then, the relationship between the two companies has soured, and MTN is currently in a shareholder dispute with the tower firm, in which it holds 26 per cent over governance issues.

Wendels, the second-largest shareholder in IHS Towers after MTN, backed MTN’s bid. Other shareholders remained on the sidelines of IHS’s bout with MTN, Wendel, and Blackwells.

Via its subsidiary Oranje-Nassau Développement, Wendels wanted to force IHS to hold a vote on several governance proposals, including having annual board elections and lowering the ownership threshold to nominate people to the board, but the board didn’t put them forward at its shareholders meeting in June.

This is not the first rodeo with American Tower, as the company bought MTN’s stake in its tower operations in Uganda and Ghana.