On 19 October, TowerXchange hosted the first working group for Civil Works & O&M in the African and Middle Eastern tower industry. The aim of the group was to identify some of the key challenges in the rollout, operations and maintenance of cell sites in the region and provide recommendations to MNOs, towercos and managed service providers on how to better work together amidst increasingly challenging economic conditions.

TowerXchange hosted our inaugural working groups at our recent TowerXchange Meetup Africa. These unique discussions help vendors understand the real operating conditions for leading buyers at MNOs, towercos and their subcontractors, identifying specific requirements and revealing much about procurement criteria. In our distributed generation working group, we focused on diesel, hybrid and renewable generation, drawing upon the experiences of two towercos, two MNOs, an ESCO and three of Africa’s leading managed service providers.

edotco’s CEO on the threats to the towerco business model, and how to overcome them

American Tower to make first European acquisition in four years

With a focus on ‘double digit’ EBITDA growth and a strong focus on future networks, INWIT are proving that MNO-owned towercos can thrive

Italian towerco HighTel Towers are looking to grow rapidly through acquisitions in the Balkans

On 28 October 2016 IHS Netherlands Holdco B.V., which owns 100% of IHS Nigeria Ltd, announced the successful launch of an $800mn high yield corporate bond issue which was listed on the Irish Stock Exchange. The bond, with a 9.5% coupon and a maturity date of 2021, is the largest high yield corporate bond to come out of Africa outside of South Africa and was assigned a Ba3 rating by Moody’s. In conjunction with the rating of the bond, Moody’s also assigned a B1 corporate family rating to IHS Netherlands Holdco B.V. which provided interesting insights into the assessment of the Sub-Saharan towerco business by this ratings agency. TowerXchange examine Moody’s credit assessment of the towerco.

How and why the market is starting to evolve

Does the restructuring of ATC Europe as a JV show a renewed commitment to the burgeoning European market, or a desire to limit exposure

Summary of tower industry news across Asia

4site identify seven steps to simplify and streamline small cell rollout

How EI Towers’ telecoms arm, TowerTel, is achieving impressive growth through best practice in small scale acquisitions