IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Brett Feldman: Got it.

Steve Howden: May I add, we also did $15 million of premium in January. So that process remains moving.

Operator: . And your next question comes from the line of Eric Luebchow from Wells Fargo.

Eric Luebchow: So just curious on your BTS program or really any other investments. I mean, I wanted to talk about what type of unlevered returns you’re underwriting on those site builds. And have those hurdle rates changed at all just based on the elevated interest rate environment we’re in?

Steve Howden: Sure. So we’ve historically provided some ballpark guidance in terms of BTS returns around the group. And, I would say this is across the entire IHS Group. So they do range a little bit from region to region, country to country. And we’ve typically guided people to a 10- to 11-type percent return on a 1-tenant tower getting up to the low 20% returns on the 2-tenant tower. In terms of how that’s changed in the past year, they are still broadly in line with that, possibly 1% or so off, given things like higher energy prices, which affects our African businesses but not necessarily our other parts of the geographies like LatAm. And so those returns are still ballpark and what we would expect to receive.

Eric Luebchow: Okay. Great. That’s helpful. And I guess just one last one on leverage. I know you’re at the low end of your leverage target. And based on the strong EBITDA growth this year, I mean, do you expect in this environment maybe to go below the low end? Or as you look at incremental investment opportunities, M&A, buybacks, how are you thinking about managing leverage in the current environment versus returns from an incremental investment?

Steve Howden: Yes. I’m expecting to stay at the low end of the range during the course of 2023. Now that depends largely on what happens in terms of things like devaluation of currencies, et cetera. Although we still remain comfortable even in those scenarios. M&A, as Sam said, look, we will continue to remain prudent. We’re in an environment, where access and cost of financing is not what it was. So we’re very mindful of those dynamics, but it depends what comes along in terms of something strategically important to help the diversification push. But base case, I would think, will stay at the low end of the range through 2023.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Stella Cridge from Barclays.

Stella Cridge: Many thanks for all the updates. So there’s two things I wanted to ask, please. The first is on South Africa in general. I mean there’s clearly some major stress on the power network there, at the moment. I just wondered if you could tell us a bit more about what you’ve been working on there in terms of offering different sort of power sources to your own fleet, but also to that of MTNs as well? The second thing, I wanted to ask was you in the slide when you were talking about upstreaming, you talked about a structured transaction for the last 2 cash flows. So I just wondered, what you meant specifically by that? And then finally, just on the leases, so you did talk about the lease accounting, and I saw that the leases moved up quarter-on-quarter. So, I just wanted to ask what the reason for that was. That would be great.

Sam Darwish: I’ll take the first one, and Steve can cover the remaining two. Thanks. Stella. Look, as you actually noted, the level of load shedding in South Africa has steadily deteriorated or kind of like escalated, since we completed the deal last year. As such the need for power managed services, like the expertise we provide in Nigeria and other countries is at the moment, greater. We need to make sure, however, that whatever we do, it does receive the proper economics while putting our knowledge and experience in Nigeria, which is unique in a way into helping our customers. We are specifically in dialogue with everyone at the moment, trying to see what is it, that they want to do. I mean, we will be happy to provide the service that they require, but it’s an ongoing discussions.