MTN Group president and CEO Ralph Mupita. Picture FREDDY MAVUNDA
In October 2021, IHS Towers made its US stock market debut, listing on the New York Stock Exchange. At the time, MTN owned about a third of the company and was thought to be on a path to a bumper payday, when it would eventually sell down the investment. Similar market conditions scuppered Telkom’s efforts to list its tower business Swiftnet on the JSE a few months later in early 2022. Telkom had valued the unit at R13bn but failed to get even three-quarters of that when testing the market.
The listing of IHS was a big part of the plan that also includes pulling out of unstable, war-torn countries in the Middle East to focus on lucrative African markets, where the company is building new streams of income in financial services, gaming and music streaming. “We don’t have to do it [sell] because the balance sheet is in a good position. For those of you who are calculating and looking at IHS and say ‘these guys will sell in the next one or two years’, obviously you must make your own investment views, but our view is that we are in a kind of hold position with IHS,” he said.