Afrigather IHS Towers ($IHS), the world’s fourth-largest impartial tower firm, has laid off over 100 staff as forex devaluation in Nigeria, its greatest market, squeezes its income. One individual with direct information of the enterprise instructed TechCabal that the layoffs, which minimize throughout a number of departments, largely affected senior staff and the community surveillance group.
A lot of the affected senior staff have spent a decade at IHS Towers and acquired “important” severance packages, the identical individual stated. “[The company said] it was not due to underperformance however due to the financial system,” they added.
IHS Towers didn’t instantly reply to requests for feedback.
Since 2022, IHS Towers has confronted stress from traders over its poor monetary efficiency. The corporate misplaced $409 million within the fourth quarter of 2023 after a forex devaluation in Nigeria shrunk revenues and brought about FX losses from USD loans.
The corporate, which presently employs 1,600 folks, reported a $1.9 billion loss in 2023, a 304% enhance from the earlier 12 months’s losses. Its market capitalisation is $1.3 billion, a $6 billion decline since 2021.
Whereas its share value has barely rebounded in August to $3.56 after buying and selling at $2.98 in July, it’s nonetheless a far cry from the highs of 2021, when it offered for $21.
IHS Towers operates over 40,000 towers in Africa, roughly 25% of the continent’s total tower infrastructure, which it leases to telcos like MTN and Airtel. This service is essential for Africa’s digital financial system plans, as towers present the spine for web connectivity.
Nonetheless, rising gas costs, upkeep prices, inflation, and FX volatility in Nigeria—which accounts for over half of IHS’s gross sales and income—have threatened the enterprise.
Within the first quarter of 2024, the enterprise spent $88.8 million on energy, its largest working value.
“The corporate used greater than $1.5 billion in money final 12 months for investing actions, however the line objects on the corporate’s revealed assertion of money flows for such investing actions will not be defined in any significant approach,” a shareholder stated in a June 2023 letter.
Gimba Mohammed, the director of presidency and exterior relations at IHS Towers, stated at a convention in August that it value the enterprise greater than ₦14 billion to repair fibre cuts between 2022 and 2023.
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