American Tower Corporation (ATC) has acquired Eaton Towers Holdings, a pan-African tower company that owns and operates more than 5,500 mobile telecom towers in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Niger, for approximately US$1.85bn
ATC, one of the largest global REITs, is an owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of more than 170,000 communications sites.
Eaton Towers’ customers are some of the major African mobile operators such as Airtel, MTN, Orange, Tigo, Vodacom and Vodafone.
Eaton Towers co-founder and CEO, Terry Rhodes, said, “To grow from an idea of a few people ten years ago to become a leader in African shared telecoms infrastructure with approximate annual revenue and EBITDA of US$250mn and US$150mn respectively and bottom-line profitability is a unique achievement.”
“We will work closely with ATC to ensure customers throughout our markets continue to receive outstanding levels of service.I would personally like to congratulate all 200 of our people and am very pleased that our shareholders have agreed to share the success with all our staff,” he added.
Christian Skaanild, a director representing capital group private markets, the majority shareholder, stated, “We are proud of what has been achieved since we made our first investment in Eaton Towers in 2011 when the African telecom towers industry was at a very nascent stage.”
“Since then our investment has contributed to improved coverage and capacity delivering voice and data access for consumers. I would like to acknowledge the achievement of all the management and employees of Eaton Towers, as well as, the support of our co-investors and the Board of Directors,” he continued.
Other institutional shareholders include founding investor Development Partners International as well as South Africa’s Ethos Private Equity and Standard Chartered Private Equity.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2019, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
