IHS Towers’ Last Hoorah
IHS Holding Limited (NYSE: IHS), operating as IHS Towers, may have released its last quarterly earnings report as an independent, multi-national tower company. Based in London, the company operates in five countries in Africa, and in Brazil and Colombia in South America. At the end of 1Q26, IHS Towers’ portfolio comprised 37,641 towers with 54,854 tenants for a 1.46 tenancy ratio. The company ranks as the world’s fifth largest independent, multi-national tower company, according to Inside Towers Intelligence.
IHS Towers has been divesting what it considered low performing or non-strategic assets to streamline its operations. On February 11, it agreed to sell its 51 percent stake in I-Systems to TIM S.A., for approximately $453 million; the deal closed in early May. On February 17, it agreed to sell its Latin American tower operations of over 8,900 towers in Brazil and Colombia to Macquarie Asset Management for roughly $952 million, Inside Towers reported.
The pivotal deal, however, was when the company announced in February the proposed sale of the entire company to Johannesburg, South Africa-based mobile network operator, MTN Group Limited for $6.2 billion, Inside Towers reported. MTN operates in 16 countries throughout Africa and the Middle East.
IHS Towers was founded in 2001 by Sam Darwish in Lagos, Nigeria, as a company focused on building and operating shared telecom tower infrastructure in emerging markets. The company started as a new, purpose-built tower company, not as a spin-off from a mobile network operator, and was created to own, operate, and develop telecom sites.
In 2009, the company launched colocation services to support multiple MNO tenants on the same towers as mobile networks expanded throughout the region. Nigeria is IHS Towers’ largest market with nearly 16,000 towers, according to Inside Towers Intelligence.
For 1Q26, IHS Towers reported $415.4 million in revenue from continuing operations, up six percent from $392.1 million in 1Q25. Adjusted EBITDA of $268.7 million grew over six percent year-over-year, while Adjusted Levered Free Cash Flow jumped nearly 16 percent YoY to $173.5 million. The company did not provide any forward-looking guidance.
Darwish, now IHS Towers Chairman and CEO, comments, “The proposed sale of IHS Towers to MTN, expected to close in 2026, remains an important strategic milestone, building on our long-standing partnership and supporting the [MTN] Group’s next phase of development.”
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
