IHS - Q1 2023

Transcript

Colby Synesael (SVP of Communications and Head of the US Corporate Office)

Thank you, operator. Thanks also to everyone for joining the call today. I'm Colby Synesael, the EVP of Communications 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 ending 31 March 2023 on the investor relations section of our website, and issued a related earnings release and presentation. These are the consolidated results of IHS Holding Limited, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IHS, 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 two, which should be read in full along with the cautionary statement 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 that 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 other filings with the SEC.

We'll also refer to non-IFRS measures that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business. 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. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO.

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Colby. Welcome everyone to our Q1 2023 earnings results call. We had another strong quarter with growth primarily driven by a sequential step-up from new lease amendments, escalators, and Forex resets, while growth from power moderated, all as expected.

Results also included a $48 million one-time benefit to revenue and adjusted EBITDA from our smallest key customer in Nigeria, inclusive of $5 million additional withholding tax gross up and a $43 million one-time benefit to RLFCF. Lastly, Q1 results included a $9 million Forex tailwind versus rates previously assumed in guidance, all positive. We are reiterating our 2023 guidance for all our key metrics, including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, RLFCF, and CapEx that we issued in March.

We recognize the modest upside from the $5 million withholding tax benefit in Q1, and that our updated Forex rates now assumed in guidance imply $14 million upside versus rates previously assumed in guidance. However, given Forex rates in emerging markets can be volatile and that a notable risk of Naira devaluation this year exists, we think it's important we remain prudent in our approach and not increase our guidance.

Overall, we remain on track to achieve our goals for 2023. Skipping to slide seven, I want to discuss some of our key highlights for the quarter. Starting with Nigeria, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expected to be sworn in as Nigeria's next president on 29 May. We wish Mr. Tinubu much success and continue to be cautiously optimistic about the economic issues he has said he intends to address.

More specific to IHS, we completed the upstreaming that began last quarter and resulted in incremental $15 million upstream in Q1. We're also pleased to announce today that subsequent to quarter end, we have upstreamed an additional $50 million.

On Nigeria, during Q1, we elected to rationalize 727 towers occupied by our smallest key customer, where we were not recognizing revenue but were incurring costs. This was as expected and will help drive cost savings, a positive development. In South Africa, our acquisition of nearly 6,000 towers from MTN a year ago immediately made us the largest independent tower operator in the country.

As we stated last quarter, and given various dynamics in the market, including an unprecedented level of load shedding that has occurred in the country post deal close, we continue to evaluate our power services opportunities and will update you as appropriate and if necessary.

Moving on, the Block B Shares, which equate to just over $60 million shares, became available to trade without the registered offering requirement on 14 April, and another $120 million+ shares will become available in October 2023, including Blocks C and D. After taking initial steps in 2022 to help improve stock liquidity, including waiving the registered offering requirement last May, we believe the releases of Block B, C and D this year may further help our trading volumes, and we continue to evaluate options that we believe will enhance the value of the company.

At the same time, we continue to focus on delivering against our publicly stated fundamental objectives and building a track record with investors. Lastly, as previously disclosed, during Q1, we entered into a Naira-denominated term loan and RCF as we look to increase the percent of our debt held in local currency, or more specifically, the Naira in anticipation of a potential Naira devaluation.

Overall, we continue to take a disciplined approach to capital de-deployment, recognizing the importance of maintaining a strong balance sheet. This includes net leverage of 3.1x at the low end of our 3x to 4x target and no meaningful maturities due until Q4 2025. While we continue to optimize our balance sheet, we are generally happy with where we are.

Quickly, you'll see on slide eight that we expect to publish our 2022 sustainability report later this quarter, which will be our fifth year of doing so. The 2022 sustainability report will be our first year reporting under the GRI framework, demonstrating our continued evolution in sustainability reporting at IHS. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Sam, hello, everyone. Having reported our Q4 and full year 2022 results less than two months ago and discussed some elements of Q1 then, I'll be particularly concise today. Turning to slide nine, as Sam mentioned, we're pleased with our Q1 performance.

You will see that our main KPIs have all increased by double-digit percentages in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022, and we once again delivered double-digit growth in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and RLFCF for the quarter, even after excluding the one-time cash payment received in Q1 2023 from our smallest key customer in Nigeria. As Sam mentioned, we had already flagged this payment on the Q4 call, and ultimately it resulted in $48 million of revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and $43 million of RLFCF in Q1.

Specifically, in Q1, we delivered 35% growth in revenue, 37% growth in adjusted EBITDA, and 72% growth in RLFCF, in each case on a reported basis driven by both organic and inorganic activity across our markets. Our adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 55.7%, an 80 basis points gain on Q1 '22.

I'll talk about these rates as adjusted for the one-time revenue on later slides to give the true performance comparison. As you also see, CapEx grew by 30% in the quarter, largely due to investment in network refurbishment in South Africa, increased CapEx relating to I-Systems fiber deployment in LATAM, and in Nigeria, ongoing investment in Project Green offset in part by decreases in other and fiber CapEx there.

Finally, our consolidated net leverage ratio was 3.1x at the end of Q1, an increase versus last year following our two acquisitions, but a slight decrease from Q4 2022. Turning to our revenue on a consolidated basis, slide 10 shows the components of our 35.1% reported consolidated revenue growth for the Q1.

Organic revenue growth of 38% was driven primarily by the $48 million one-time revenue in other, and by CPI escalations, power-related revenue, and lease amendments, with FX resets, new colocation, new sites, and fiber deployment adding to growth as usual. The level of escalations and FX resets you see reflects our contract protections, while the level of power-related revenue continues to reflect the high energy price environment, albeit it was down from last quarter.

I would also again note that we now include the power pass-through revenue we received in South Africa within the power segment, and in Q1 accounted for $1.4 million. On the right, you can see the organic growth rates of each of our segments for the quarter, with Nigeria delivering 47% organic growth, including that one-time payment.

Inorganic growth for Q1 was 8.3%, reflecting the South African acquisition, the SP5 acquisition in Brazil, and the fifth stage of the Kuwait acquisition. Inorganic growth will continue to drop in Q2 as we are passing the anniversaries of the SP5 and South African transactions. FX delivered a negative 11.3% impact in the quarter. In totality, even when excluding the one-time revenue in the quarter, we delivered strong growth of 24% on a reported basis and 27% on an organic basis.

On Slide 11, you can see our consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margins for Q1 2023. As I discussed on the prior slide, in the Q1, IHS generated a 35% increase in reported revenue. Organic revenue growth was even higher at 38%, again demonstrating the continued strong top-line growth trends of the businesses led by Nigeria and LATAM in particular. In Q1 2023, adjusted EBITDA of $335 million increased 37% versus Q1 2022, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 55.7%, up 80 basis points from the prior year.

The year-over-year changes in adjusted EBITDA and margin for the Q1 primarily reflect the increase in revenue we've already discussed, including that one-time revenue, partially offset with year-on-year cost increases in cost of sales, mainly due to higher diesel costs, increased maintenance and repair costs on a larger business, as well as increased administrative expenses resulting from employee costs related to the acquisitions.

Without the $48 million one-time benefit, adjusted EBITDA still grew 17%. Power generation cost of sales increased by $28 million, driven by a $23 million diesel cost increase, primarily due to a 38% increase in diesel price, partially offset by a 7.5% decrease in consumption, each in Nigeria.

As previously highlighted, we have locked in pricing for a significant portion of our diesel needs through September 2023, and through Project Green, we continue to prioritize alternative sources of power to reduce our dependency on diesel.

On slide 12, we first review our recurring levered free cash flow. We generated RLFCF of $150 million in Q1 2023, a 72% increase versus Q1 last year due to a combination of factors, including the increased revenue and adjusted EBITDA discussed already, in particular, the one-time payment in Nigeria, which had a net $43 million positive impact on RLFCF. These factors were offset in part by increases in net interest paid, lease payments made mostly due to South African acquisition, and withholding tax.

Our RLFCF cash conversion rate was 44.6%. Excluding the non-recurring revenue in the quarter, our RLFCF still grew 23%. Despite the higher energy and higher interest rate environments in this quarter versus the prior period.

Turning to CapEx in Q1 2023, CapEx of $153 million increased 30% year-on-year. The increase was again primarily due to increased CapEx in South Africa in connection with the refurbishment of the portfolio acquired during 2022. Increased CapEx in LATAM, primarily for I-Systems and increases in Nigeria in connection with Project Green, on which we spent $34 million in the quarter.

Turning to the segment review on slide 13, I'll first walk through our Nigeria business. The Nigerian macro remains challenging, as we discussed in late March. U.S. dollars continue to be difficult to source, although remain available, with FX reserves in the country having decreased to $35.5 billion at the end of March from $37.1 billion at the end of 2022.

While the price of oil has since decreased quarter-on-quarter, the ICE Gasoil price remains elevated versus a year ago, reflecting the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Q1 2022, and it is the most relevant indicator of the diesel pricing we pay. Looking at ICE Gasoil, it was $819 per ton in Q1 2023, down from $948 per ton in Q4 last year, but still above the $786 per ton in Q1 2022.

Moving to real GDP growth, it expanded by 3.5% in Q4 of 2022, with a projected full year 2022 growth of 3.2%, while inflation increased to 22% this March versus 15.9% in March 2022. Importantly, on 29 May President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expected to be inaugurated. As we said previously, we're cautiously optimistic given the statements made by Mr. Tinubu regarding addressing the economic issues facing the country, and we remain in close contact with our key customers, two of which have again recently published healthy top-line results in their businesses.

We also continue to work closely with various regulators, our vendors, and our local banking partners to continue to best position IHS. All said, we believe the business remains well-positioned for continued long-term success and to endure the nearer-term macroeconomic challenges.

To this point, our Nigerian business once again delivered strong results in the Q1, tracking well on our key metrics. Q1 '2023 revenue of $425 million increased 33% year-on-year on a reported basis, and 47% on an organic basis. In each case, also reflecting the one-time revenue discussed. Top-line growth was driven by the usual group of power-related revenue escalations, FX resets, lease amendments, new collocations, fiber, and new site deployment.

The negative FX impact was $45.2 million or 14%. Our tower count decreased by 2.9%, and total tenant count decreased by 0.2%, each versus Q1 '2022, largely reflecting the planned decommissioning previously discussed, which does not impact our revenue. Our colocation rate consequently improved to 1.57x, up from 1.52x in Q1 '2022.

Lease amendments continue to be a strong driver of growth, with these increasing by 13% quarter-on-quarter as our customers added additional equipment to our sites, particularly 4G upgrades. Q1 2023 segment adjusted EBITDA in Nigeria was $272 million, a 34% increase from a year ago, and segment adjusted EBITDA margin was up 70 basis points to 64%. Let me now briefly summarize the results of our other segments.

As our Sub-Saharan African segment now reflects the inclusion of our South African business, towers and tenants increased substantially versus Q1 2022. Revenue increased by 43%, of which organic revenue grew 16%, inorganic revenue grew 33%, driven by the South African acquisition, and FX was a 6.2% headwind.

Segment adjusted EBITDA increased by 39%, driven primarily by the increased revenue, partially offset by increases in power generation costs, maintenance and security costs, and administrative expenses. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin decreased to 53.5% from 54.9% in Q1 of last year.

We continue to monitor the macro environment in South Africa, particularly the ongoing power load-shedding by the national utility, as previously discussed, we continue to evaluate our managed services opportunity there. In our LATAM segment, towers and tenants grew more modestly by 3.4% and 9% respectively, reflecting the closure of the GTS' SP5 acquisition in Q1 last year. Revenue and segment adjusted EBITDA each increased by over 40% in Q1 2023, largely due to the timing of the closure of the deal last year, as well as the I-Systems fiber business.

In Brazil, our second-largest market with 7,023 towers, macro conditions were largely stable as GDP growth decelerated, FX rates marginally strengthened, interest rates held steady, and inflation decreased.

In our LATAM segment overall, Q1 '2023 organic revenue increased 18%, driven by an increase from I-Systems, CPI escalators, new sites, and new colocation, with inorganic revenue increasing by 27% from the acquisition. Segment adjusted EBITDA grew by 41% in the quarter, with a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 68.3%, reflecting the increased revenue but offset by increased administrative expenses, including increased staff costs and a bad debt allowance.

In MENA, towers and tenants each grew by 8% in Q1 2023, and revenue grew by 13%, including 11% organic revenue growth. Segment adjusted EBITDA grew by 1% in the quarter, with a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 37.6%, reflecting the increased revenue, but offset by increases in cost of sales and administrative expense.

Onto slide 14, I'll briefly highlight our KPIs. As of 31 March, our tower count was 39,104, up 17.5% from the same period last year, driven largely by the acquisitions mentioned and ongoing new sites in LatAm, Nigeria, and SSA, albeit down by a net 548 towers since the end of 2022. As you can see in the chart on the top right, collectively, we built nearly 200 towers during the Q1 of 2023.

As Sam mentioned, we also rationalized 727 towers occupied by our smallest key customer in Nigeria, where we were not generating revenue. Tower tenants grew 17% with the co-location rate at 1.49x, flat versus last year, but up slightly from Q4 2022. We continue to point out that lease amendments are a significant factor for us, particularly in our Nigerian segment, given the ongoing 4G upgrades by our customers there.

The initial, albeit small, 5G activity we are seeing. While lease amendments increased by almost 16% year-on-year, they are not included in our co-location calculation. We continue to see no reason why we can't get to 2x or greater on our overall portfolio over the long term, and our more mature portfolios of towers are at or above that rate.

On slide 15, we look at our capital structure and related items. At 31 March 2023, we had approximately $4.06 billion of external debt and IFRS 16 lease liabilities. Of the $4.06 billion of debt, $1.94 billion represent our bond financings, and other indebtedness includes $370 million that we drew down in 2022 from the $600 million three year bullet term loan at the IHS Holding Limited level. Additionally, as discussed on our Q4 earnings call, in January of 2023, we entered into an up to NGN 165 billion five year term loan and an up to NGN 55 billion three year RCF.

In connection with this, we repaid NGN 114 billion of our two Nigerian local currency facilities. As you see in the table, removing significant 2023 amortization. The Nigerian RCF is undrawn. As we previously stated, we're very pleased to have completed the recent Nigeria refinancings, which further de-risk the balance sheet and increase our financial flexibility, particularly in light of the tough financing conditions that remain across the globe. Cash and cash equivalents were basically flat at $516 million at 31 March.

In terms of where that cash is held, approximately 10% of the total cash was held in naira at our Nigeria business, as we've been using excess cash to support Project Green and upstreaming. The majority of the remaining cash was held in US dollars at the group level. Moreover, as we previously highlighted, in January, we upstreamed $15 million from Nigeria as part of the structured transaction that began at the end of last year, and through which we have upstreamed $75 million across December 2022 and January 2023.

As Sam noted, we have upstreamed an additional $50 million in Q2 2023. Consequently, from all these moving elements, at the end of Q1 2023, our consolidated net debt was approximately $3.5 billion, and our consolidated net leverage ratio was 3.1x, down slightly from December and at the low end of our net leverage target range of 3-4x, further demonstrating our strong balance sheet.

Onto slide 16, we're reiterating 2023 guidance that includes revenue in the range of $2.19 to 2.22 billion, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $1.2 to 1.22 billion, RLCF in the range of $430 to 450 million, and total CapEx in the range of $610 to 650 million. As Sam mentioned, while we recognize the modest upside in Q1, including the updated FX rates, given FX rates in emerging markets can be volatile and that we still expect a notable devaluation in Nigeria this year, we think it's important we remain prudent in our approach and not increase our guidance.

Guidance also continues to include approximately $25 million of power pass-through revenue in South Africa, of which we recognized $1.4 million in Q1 2023. I do want to again caution that timing of such moves is difficult to predict and could be delayed relative to what we've assumed, although this would have no impact on adjusted EBITDA or RLFCF.

Guidance also continues to not include any revenue from Egypt, although we continue to evaluate opportunities in the market that we believe could align with our financial and strategic objectives. I also want to point out again that we have locked in pricing for a significant portion of our diesel needs in Nigeria through September 2023, which in turn will provide greater visibility to our costs.

For the year, we continue to expect to build approximately 1,200 towers, which is slightly more than the amount we built in 2022. This includes a notable drop in Nigeria as we pull back on new site builds as we shift more of our focus to Project Green, but also includes a tripling of tower builds in Brazil that will be back-end loaded in 2023.

On slide 17, on the top you can see revenue by reporting currency for Q1 '2023, whereas on the bottom, we provide the breakout of revenue based on contract split. The right side shows the average annual FX rates, assumptions that we used in 2023 guidance, and has been updated slightly since last quarter. This equates to a $14 million upside for the year versus rates assumed last quarter. This now brings us to the end of our formal presentation. We thank you for your time today. Operator, please now open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Your first question comes from the line of Philip Cusick with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Hi, guys. Couple things, thank you. Let's just dig a little deeper into Nigeria. There's a new government. You've mentioned a couple of times and a devaluation expected. It sounds like you've pared down your cash pretty aggressively getting ready for this. Just give us a little bit more on your thinking.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Hi, Phil, Steve. Not too much has changed since we last spoke in March. You know, Mr. Tinubu had been elected in February, which is obviously still the case we've got the inauguration coming on the 29 May. The policies that Mr. Tinubu continues to sort of champion are the ones that we've mentioned before around, you know, potentially tackling the FX rate and the fact that it continues to be undervalued.

Hence our comments around, you know, continuing to believe that there could be a devaluation of the currency, you know, during the course of 2023. The fuel subsidy as well, that continues to be a hot topic in Nigeria. If and when, you know, that may get ramp down, phased out, and over time, you know, completely eradicated. You know, there isn't too much more I think we can say from our perspective we're waiting to see the new government come in in the next week or so, and then see if some of those pledges that were made through the campaign start to come to fruition.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Have the carriers changed their build pace or anything like that, or everything is just running a pace?

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Not, not significantly, no we're continuing to see, you know, the likes of MTN in Nigeria, the likes of Airtel in Nigeria, continue to push forward with their rollout they're pretty focused on 5G at the moment. By that I mean focused on figuring out exactly how best to get that to the population, which won't, you know, as we've said before, won't initially be, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of sites being rolled out.

It will certainly start to add incrementally to the infrastructure needs of the country indeed, we've seen that in Q1 a little bit and in Q4 a little bit last year as well. No significant changes. I would say the carriers are continuing to behave, as we would expect them to, you know, in this part of the technology cycle, which is the early onset of the next G of technology.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Sam, if I can, maybe talk about the global tower M&A landscape. What does it look like in terms of potential carrier sales or other partnerships? Your leverage is running at this point at the low end of your target range does that make you think any differently about either how you would structure things or what kind of deals you would wanna do? Thank you.

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Phil. Look, in terms of our position, maybe I start there. I think we have intentionally been on the prudent side over the past 12 months, I would say 12 to 15 months. We have kinda like seen this coming with the rising interest rates, we realize pressure will be on our sector for sure. It's kinda like shied away as much as we can i mean, we still look at various M&A opportunity. We still did South Africa, which we thought was very strategic to us.

For us it's largely about how strategic is it gonna be and how expensive or how cheap can we get a deal done. That's the important part at the moment. Having said that, I think there has been a dislocation between public valuations and private valuations. The private expectations, the private sector expectations, kinda like did not trend down as fast as the public valuations did.

That dislocation kinda like was still there to be honest, Phil, we're beginning to see it softening somehow as some of the sellers who need to sell kinda like are beginning to put their assets out there. There are a few processes in Bat town. There are a few processes out there in the Middle East at the moment. They're taking their time, at some point, I think transactions will have to start happening, and they're not gonna be at the high multiples that we've seen 18 months ago or 24 months ago. Hope that answers your question?

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

In the meantime, with your leverage at the low end, would you think about buying stock? How do you think about the need for liquidity versus taking advantage of the share price?

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Look, I think this year is kinda like slightly different because we are in a very good position. Last year, we wanted to make sure we kinda like our balance sheet is tight, is ready for come what may. I think Steve and the team have done a wonderful job in kinda like pushing maturities further, bringing more debt into the local currencies even our overall cost of debt remains kinda like somehow subdued.

Yes, at the moment we are sitting at low leverage, which enables us to probably try and do more. Again, Phil, I don't think the world is out of its tunnel. I think the interest rate yet to be seen, how are we gonna control inflation? Where does Europe stand? The Ukraine war, geopolitical tension with China. I think we are still in a phase that requires prudence. If a deal presents itself that is cheap enough, it has to be good commercials, it has to be strategic, we can do it. It's as simple as that.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

We're not in a rush.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Williams with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Gregory Williams (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Just one, just help us with your guidance. I know you reiterated it, and you are just admittedly one quarter in or even just two months from the last print. Even if I look at your underlying performance and these $43 million in one-time benefits, you are trending to beat.

Just wondering if there's conservatism here, you know, how much of that is factoring and maybe the uncertainty of the devaluation. Second, just to ask again on devaluation, can you help me with the mechanics of it? Suppose there's a devaluation tomorrow, how quickly are your FX and CPI resets? Is it, you know, monthly, quarterly, to catch up with that, if you will? Thanks.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Greg. I mean, what you said and what you outlined in terms of the guidance is exactly how we've tried to portray it. It's exactly how we're thinking about it, which is, yes, we've had some positive performance in Q1, helped by, you know, some positivity around FX, et cetera. You know, we have tailwinds there. As you said, we're only at Q1.

We are taking, again, a cautious position around potential future currency devaluation, particularly Nigeria we've just spoken about. Our view right now is to, you know, layer a little bit of caution into the guide and not change it. We're certainly pleased where we are within those ranges, you know, at the upper end, et cetera. Yeah, that's exactly the thinking and the fact pattern around maintaining guidance as is for now.

Then on your second question around as and when if devaluation happens, and we're specifically referring to Nigeria here, of course, and I'll just guide people to the slide 19 in our presentation, the earnings presentation, which is up on the website, gives you a pie chart of the frequency of our resets. From a FX resetting perspective, the vast majority, in fact 94%, of those contracts are resetting on a quarterly basis. If a devaluation were to happen tomorrow, in your example, they would start to reset from the 1st of July being the next calendar quarter commencing.

Now they're not all spot some are taking the average of FX rates, et cetera you see that reset come through the next quarter and the following quarter. That takes care of the FX side of things. Then from a CPI perspective, majority of CPI escalations are passed annually. In fact, pretty much all of them. Those are often in January, being the beginning of the calendar year or on the anniversary of when any particular MLA was signed they are scattered a bit across the year. Those CPI resets are annual, whereas the FX resets, slide 19, most of them are quarterly.

Gregory Williams (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Brett Feldman (Managing Director and Equity Analyst)

Thanks for taking the question. I guess I'll probably stick initially with the potential devaluation. You sort of alluded to, but obviously it would be helpful to your Nigerian-based debt balances. It sounds like you've pulled down a lot of cash, so I don't think that that would be particularly harmful.

Is there anything else that we need to think about from a mechanic standpoint? Would there be any gains or charges that you would take in a quarter where there may be a significant devaluation? Remind us around just the conversation you have with your tenants, because a significant devaluation can make it more challenging for them to pay their bills, particularly bills that are tied to hard currencies. Anything we need to be contemplating there? I have a follow-up question on Project Green.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, sure. I'll start taking that one. In terms of anything else to be thinking through on, you know, potential devaluation, we do see unrealized FX losses in case of devaluation, which is effectively our third-party dollar debts although in the case of Nigeria, that's now zero, so we won't see that.

Shareholder loans, which is how we've historically pushed money into the country. These are internal shareholder loans, to be clear. Those are denominated in dollars, you can see unrealized FX losses there, but that will pass through the bottom of the income statement it won't affect any KPIs, but you will see that come through if there is a devaluation coming through.

In terms of customer discussions, there's a lot of things to keep in mind around the customer discussions. Firstly, our key customers in Nigeria continue to be very healthy. MTN and Airtel continue to grow their businesses really significantly. MTN about 19%, Airtel about similar 20% revenue growth in the last quarter results they posted they're sitting at 52%-53% margin as well.

Those businesses continue to be very profitable themselves, such that they can, you know, withstand these types of devaluations that pass through. I would also just point out that, you know, in some of those cases, we have been taking the diesel cost, the energy cost for those customers.

When we talk to customers about FX, we're also talking to them about energy prices. It's a totality of conversations. Some they win, some we win, et cetera we're not expecting any particular issue with those key customers in the market. You know, that's been the case historically as well in terms of when devaluations have occurred.

Brett Feldman (Managing Director and Equity Analyst)

Got it. Just on Project Green, obviously it's still early days, but you seem like you're making good progress against that initiative. Any early anecdotal color you can give to us in terms of the extent to which it's yielding the benefits you had anticipated, or is it just too soon?

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Still too soon. We'll look to get to that later in the year. I would say it's very much on track. We're in that phase where certainly Q3, Q4, Q1, and a little bit coming in Q2 is really the timeframe to get the CapEx out the door to get those, get all those solutions, grid connectivity, batteries, solar panels, et cetera. Get all that onto site, spent and onto site and starting to be connected and working. We're a little bit early, but certainly we're on track we're pleased with what we're seeing internally and, you know, we'll update, you know, everyone due course.

Brett Feldman (Managing Director and Equity Analyst)

Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator (participant)

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, it is star one on your keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi Please go ahead.

Michael Ian Rollins (Managing Director and US Telecoms Analyst)

Thanks and good morning. A couple of follow-ups. Just, you know, looking at slide 10, if you add together the CPI and the FX resets, the FX headwind to the right is a little larger than the combination of those two items, the escalations and the resets. You know, how should investors be thinking about this relationship on a go-forward basis? Is it a net positive, net neutral, net negative? Is that the right way to think about that, you know, there's a relationship between, you know, all three of these components of the revenue bridge? Just secondly-

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Yeah.

Michael Ian Rollins (Managing Director and US Telecoms Analyst)

Just taking a step back on some of the capital allocation strategies and some of the points that you outlined earlier are there any new ideas or updates on how the board and the management team would like to translate the operating performance into creating shareholder value? Thanks.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Sure. I'll take the first one. I'm happy to start and Sam can jump in as well. On the first one, yeah, you're absolutely right in the way of thinking about it that's how I like to talk to people about, you know, the building blocks in this growth bridge. CPI escalations plus FX resets versus the FX impact at the end of the bar. There is of course, timing nuances. These are very binary quarterly snapshots of our growth. You know, in the case of this particular quarter, when you look at FX resets selling 3.4%, yes, we have CPI escalators at 7.3%, but against FX negative of 11.3%.

Give you one example, which is the majority of what's happening there this quarter. In Nigeria, our average billing was around NGN 444 to the dollars, because some of it's based on spot and some of it's based on average of the preceding quarter. When the average rate we consolidated the books out was NGN 461. You'll see that true up, that balance come through in Q2. That's why I say sometimes there's a little bit of timing within these growth blocks, but how you're thinking about it, Mike, is absolutely the right way to think about it. It should be net positive overall that's what we've seen historically.

It's not hugely net positive, but it's certainly a positive when you combine CPI and FX resets versus underlying currency performance. On the capital allocation point, clearly, it's the board's mandate to continue assessing these along with management. So we keep looking at all the different options between investing in the business, inorganic activity, things like buybacks, or other forms of capital allocation. That continues to be a hot topic of agenda for us. You know, we'll continue to look at that through the course of, I suspect this year. Sam, do you wanna jump in?

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Hi, Michael. Look, Michael, it's very important to note that in terms of share price performance or where things stand, there is definitely, again, a disconnect. Let's not forget, we listed barely 18 months ago. We listed at the beginning of a downturn in the global economic cycle. Of course, this will reverse at some point in time.

The most important part for us is again, to kinda like be there in the public eye quarter after quarter, showing what we can do, what our markets can do, how can they grow, how can we tackle pro-problems, and at the same time, keep growing, keep expanding our margin quarter after quarter. The strategy that we have maintained or created to basically help us get ourselves there is to diversify.

We need to bring down or control our energy costs among our other things. We need to keep growing organically in double digits, et cetera, et cetera the most important thing is to keep doing these things quarter after quarter.

Of course, the second part of the strategy is communications. That's why we kinda like have Colby now on board to basically be able to kinda like get ourselves out there in front of investors on a quarterly basis, on a monthly basis, sometimes even on a weekly basis. Just keep kinda like reiterating the message time after time. I mean, this is the brute force way, this is the best way, this is the right way that will get us there over time to increase the size of our float remember, Michael, the float remains an inhibitor. The size of the float remains an inhibitor to kinda like realizing proper valuation potential.

Having said all of this, the company and its board periodically, we evaluate strategic options. I mean, what else can be done? Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we run a secondary offering? Can we do this? Can we do that? Is buyback the right thing to do? I mean, we're constantly evaluating and at the appropriate time, if we feel that some of those strategic options are worth tabling, then we would put it forward.

Michael Ian Rollins (Managing Director and US Telecoms Analyst)

Do you have any interest to attract minority capital into certain investments that you have, as a way to maybe increase capital to recycle it for acquisitions while also, you know, trying to, you know, manage the valuation at which the capital comes in?

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Look, all options are on the table, but no options are on the table at the same time. We continue to evaluate these things, but It will happen as and when it is appropriate. At the time we look at these things, but at the time, we have no definitive plan to move with any of these options.

Michael Ian Rollins (Managing Director and US Telecoms Analyst)

Thank you.

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Michael.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Bora Lee with RBC. Please go ahead.

Bora Lee (VP in Communications Infrastructure Equity Research)

Good morning. It's Bora Lee on for Jonathan Atkin. Two questions from my side. Can you remind us how you're viewing the opportunities for rural build-out and fiber deployment in Nigeria and how meaningful that could be over time? Secondly, touching on Latin America, what are you seeing in terms of carrier activity there? I'm just curious if they're still going through that digestion period post Oi, and when you think that might inflect.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Hi, Bora. In terms of Nigeria, rural activity is still around. We are not engaged in huge volumes of rural activity, but we're certainly continuing to do what we can and what is needed i would say smaller part of the overall picture in Nigeria in 2023. That will just really depend on carrier activity as well as our own desires as we've mentioned a few times, we're outsized diverting, if you like, capital into Project Green, which we think is a, you know, a huge beneficial project for the country, as well as for IHS. That's really driving that.

Fiber opportunity continues for sure in Nigeria we're continuing to roll out what we call the kinda last mile for the fiber piece where we connect our own towers, which is, you know, effectively extending our infrastructure services to the entities, the customers that are already on the towers.

That does continue just to give you an idea, I mean, fiber across the entire group represents something like 3.5% of our revenue. That is Nigeria and I-Systems, our Brazilian business combined. It still remains a reasonably small part of our business. I would say standing back from numbers strategically, we do feel like there is, you know, opportunity for the right part of fiber within IHS over the short, medium, and long term we do think fiber connectivity, you know, is the key to, you know, successful backhaul, particularly on 5G, even on 4G.

You know, that is certainly part of our thinking over the longer term. In LatAm, carrier activity, I would say starting to free up. You're absolutely right, you know, in terms of the carriers being distracted with Oi over the last 18, 24 months, and the carve-up of that. I would say it's starting to free up a little bit i think you're gonna see our activity ramping up through the course of 2023, particularly on the new build side. You know, we've started off with a reasonably modest number of towers built in the Q1, I can tell you it's already accelerated in Q2. We expect to see that continue to ramp through the course of the year.

Bora Lee (VP in Communications Infrastructure Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your final question comes from the line of Stella Cridge with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Stella Cridge (Managing Director and Head of EEMEA Corporate Credit Research)

Hey there. Morning, everyone. Many thanks for all the updates. If I could just follow up and ask, what was the rate at which you upstreamed the effects in Q2 in Nigeria? You know, that'd be really helpful. I also wanted to ask on South Africa i know on the last call, you had commented that the mobile operators, you know, had to take some decisions about how they wanted to address the energy crisis.

I just wondered, you know, since that last call, do you have any, you know, more of a sense of what IHS's role might look like in terms of, you know, providing those solutions? I know you said earlier, you know, there's lots of questions about valuation, et cetera. In terms of the actual, sort of role of IHS, it'd be great to hear if there's any updates there. Thanks.

Issam Darwish (Founder, Chairman and CEO)

Sure. I'll take the second. Steve can take the first one. Let me start with the second one. Look, I think no one disagrees with the fact that IHS is one of the most experienced TowerCo who can run power solutions on in the whole world at the moment. I mean, our experience in Nigeria for the past 24 or 25 years, basically, we've done that in a country with, at the moment, 225 million people, where 95% or more of the sites don't even have a grid connection the experience is there.

Now, at the moment, we are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We have an equity story to tell, and we are a TowerCo. Our expertise, however, in South Africa is critical because we wanna use it to help our clients. We wanna use it to help our clients, mainly our partners, kinda like overcome this ordeal that is sadly happening in the country. It's gonna be used in whatever form. Whether we actually do a service, whether we consult, whether we become technical partners, whether we provide the services, it is basically at the decision of our partners.

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Stella, on the second one, pretty short, sharp answer. We haven't disclosed the rate for the $50 million. Historically, we disclosed our rates at the end of each year. We haven't done it so far.

Stella Cridge (Managing Director and Head of EEMEA Corporate Credit Research)

Okay. Okay. Thanks for the answers on both. In terms of, you know, Q1 or Q2, was there some funds upstreamed from other countries ex Nigeria as well?

Steve Howden (EVP and CFO)

Yes, there were. We haven't actually disclosed the details, but yes, there were upstreams from other countries as well.

Stella Cridge (Managing Director and Head of EEMEA Corporate Credit Research)

Okay. Many thanks for the comments.

Operator (participant)

That brings us to the end of the IHS Holding Limited Q1 2023 earnings results call. Should you have any questions, please contact the investor relations team via the email address [email protected]. The management team thank you for your participation today and wish you a good day. You may now disconnect.