IHS - Q2 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Naya Bermudez. Please go ahead.

Naya Bermudez (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

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 two, which should be read in full, along with 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.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO.

Sam Darwish (Chairman and CEO)

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 rear-view 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 8 years. Let me also touch on some of our financial highlights in the quarter. We saw revenue increase by 4% and adjusted EBITDA increase 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 1,392. As the Nigeria forex market gradually stabilizes, we continue to see USD availability and more favorable conditions to source and upstream U.S. dollars to the group. Turning to slide seven, 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 2024 and 2025, 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, Côte 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+ 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 eight 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 2024 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 2024 results, and our 2024 guidance implies continuation of higher margins versus 2023. 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-$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 U.S.-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 3-4 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 NGN 1,597 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, 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 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 (CFO)

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 2024 versus Q2 2023, 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 2024, however, was impacted by the naira devaluation from an average rate of NGN 508 to the dollar in Q2 of last year, to NGN 1,392 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 resets kicked in following the impact of the January devaluation of the naira.

Specifically in Q2, we saw revenue increase by 4% and adjusted EBITDA increase 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.

Finally, our consolidated net leverage ratio increased to 3.9x at the end of Q2, up 0.1x 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 3x-4x 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 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. 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 2024 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 2024, 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 2024 results now reflect the FX reset benefit from the late January devaluation.

In the second quarter of 2024, 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 decreasing 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.

Our ALFCF cash conversion rate was 26.7%. 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 MPR to 26.7%, a 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 NGN 1,597 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 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 -$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 1.6x, up from 1.57x 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 2024 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. 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 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, a 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 2024 adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 55.4%.

On to slide 17, and we'll look at our capital structure and related items. 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's 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, our 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 2024, our consolidated net debt was approximately $3.7 billion, and we had a consolidated net leverage ratio of 3.9x, up 0.1x versus the end of March 2024. We expect leverage to remain within our target 3x-4x 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-$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 to revenue and EBITDA, we expect our business will continue to benefit from co-locations and amendments, and with 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 (participant)

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

Jim Schneider (Senior Equity Analyst)

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. I mean, you mentioned some activity. Do you feel like there is more of a, you know, positive kind of macro view at this point? And at what point, any time in this year, would you expect that leasing activity to step up or accelerate? Thank you.

Steve Howden (CFO)

Hey, Jim, it's Steve here. Yeah, I mean, 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, and we pulled back in Africa. But actually, when you look at the co-location, which there was close to 400 in the quarter, and the lease amendments, where there was 1,200+ in the quarter, you know, 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'd reached a new deal with one of the carriers there, some in Nigeria as well. And a lot of the lease amendments are actually coming out of Nigeria, and particularly South Africa, as we see the kind of 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, you know, the carriers are looking at their CapEx spend plans, and trying to sort of rationalize where they can, given, you know, how global macro is impacting everybody in the industry. We still see kind of, you know, a steady growth in our key markets.

Jim Schneider (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. 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, you know, the seventh to ninth innings, if you want to use a baseball analogy?

Steve Howden (CFO)

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, you know, too drawn into comments generally on that particular topic. You know, we said last quarter in May that we were looking, you know, to raise $500 million-$1 billion of proceeds. We've reiterated that today. We gave ourselves a 12-month timeline back in May. And so, you know, 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 (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

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

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

I think cricket has a lot of innings, so seventh to ninth 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 you talk about, in terms of, you know, potential outcomes, capital allocation, share buybacks, dividend, 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, you know, 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 (CFO)

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've, you know, consistently characterized 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're thinking about it last quarter when we set those targets, we also don't want to rule out, you know, potential other value-creating opportunities.

Now, what we would also say is, you know, things like the progress on the governance, things like progress with MTN renewals, you know, that all sits squarely in our minds in terms of value creation. It might not be, you know, 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, our thinking around value creation. The disposals we've characterized so far, what we're targeting initially, and we've said, you know, 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 wanna add anything specific on that before I go back to LATAM.

Sam Darwish (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Hi, hi, Jon. Look, I think it's very important that we remain focused on shareholder value unlock. We really believe 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 8 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 will 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 (CFO)

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. There were 186 last quarter, albeit there were sort of 69 when you're looking at the comparator quarter from a year ago. Where we did see some step-up in lease amendments this quarter versus Q1 within the SSA segment, which was in South Africa, and that's, that was 5G rollout in South Africa.

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

What, what's driving the year-on-year step-up in, in LATAM?

Steve Howden (CFO)

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 sizably to the 37,000 that we have across the portfolio.

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

And then just on LATAM, and then one more question to Sam's answer, 'cause I was gonna ask that as well. But, so in 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 (CFO)

Yeah. I mean, if you look at our, our LATAM growth rates from this time around, when you, when you kind of unpack them for, FX and, and those sorts of items, we were about, 1% growth, but that's because we've backed out Oi, this year versus last year. So actually, organic growth rates are more like 12%-13%, for LATAM. So we continue to see, you know, decent double-digit growth in the absence of, you know, that Oi revenue. And we'll see how that progresses. You know, 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.

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

And then lastly, Sam repeated what you put in the script around the contracted backlog. And, you know, as we think about a medium to longer term margin and even a generation path, how would you bracket kind of the 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 (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, I'll sort of take that. The way that $12.3 billion of contracted revenue, you know, works, is that, that's the business on the sites today. So you know, 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, you know, when you break it down into the quarter-on-quarter piece, we are starting to now see higher margins. And, you know, we expect to be exiting the year in the mid- to high 50s. And we think that that sort of progression can continue through 2025 and into 2026.

So, you know, we're certainly targeting, and we've said this for a long, long time, we're targeting certainly beginning with 60% in terms of the margins. That's a couple of years away yet, but we're trending in the right direction.

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Sam Darwish (Chairman and CEO)

And we also believe, Jon, 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 gonna make our margins way more stable going forward into the future.

Jon Atkin (Managing Director)

Very clear. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from the line of Richard Choe from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Richard Choe (Executive Director of Equity Research)

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 central cost initiatives overall.

Steve Howden (CFO)

Sure, Sam, do you wanna, do you wanna take the data usage one? I'll just cover the cost side of things first, but if you want to take the macro one. 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. 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, 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, you know, 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, you know, 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, you know, for quite a period of time yet. Don't want to put any numbers on that just yet, but, but that is, that is happening.

Sam Darwish (Chairman and CEO)

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 (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Great. 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 (Chairman and CEO)

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 the CapEx cycle, but that pressure is cyclical and they just have to meet the demand at some point in time, which we believe sooner than later.

Richard Choe (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Great, thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Maurice Patrick (Managing Director)

Yeah, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I've got a couple, please. The first one follows a bit on from Richard's question on densification and traffic growth. I mean, when I was on the Helios call last week, they were talking 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 of revenues for next year on EBITDA. I guess you'll have the tailwind coming from CPI resets. You'll have the tailwind from the increased tenancies from Airtel. You'll have a, presumably a headwind from the last 1,100 tenancies. So just if you can 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 (CFO)

We'll 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.

But another element I would point you to is, you know, macroeconomically speaking, obviously the biggest driver for IHS in 2024 so far, and one looks like it's gonna be for the rest of 2024, 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, you know, 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. So I think we're gonna see that come through into next year. So, and then you're right, in terms of contractual resets, you know, those will all flow through as usual. So, you know, those are, those are some of the moving parts, without us putting numbers on it yet, obviously, it's a bit early for that.

Maurice Patrick (Managing Director)

Thanks. On the densification point?

Steve Howden (CFO)

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? 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, 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, you know, over the last few years, we've continued to add, you know, thousands and thousands of lease amendments, and colocations as well. Just keep in mind, Helios reports those two metrics differently to how we do. We split them out, they merge them. Just keep that in mind.

Maurice Patrick (Managing Director)

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

Steve Howden (CFO)

It's a fair point. We've, we've got a little step up in BTS CapEx, as we're delivering our, our pipelines, and a little step in fiber as well. But we'll see how that, how that guidance go, that guidance number goes. We, we've been looking at whether that's the right, right metric to retain or, 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 (Managing Director)

Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

And that brings us to the end of the IHS Holding Limited Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Results Call. Should you have any questions, please contact the investor relations team via the email address, investor.