Good day, and welcome to the IHS Holding Limited, Earnings Results Call for the 3-month period ending June 30, 2022. Please note that today's conference is being webcast and recorded. [Operator Instructions].

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Colby Synesael. Please go ahead, sir. .

Thank you, operator. Thanks also to everyone for joining the call today. I'm Colby Synesael, the SVP of Communications here at IHS. With me today are Sam Darwish, the Chairman and CEO of IHS; and Steve Howden, CFO..

This morning, we published our financial statements for the 3-month and 6-month periods ended June 30, 2022, on the Investor Relations section of our website and issued a related earnings release and presentation.

These are the consolidated results of IHS Holding Limited, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IHS, which comprises the entirety of the group's operations..

I'd also like to note that this morning we have filed with the SEC an amendment annual report on Form 20-F/A, which includes a restatement of the company's consolidated financial statements and related notes for the year ended December 31, 2021, which update the financial statements for an error in the provisional business combination accounting for the company's November 2021 acquisition of 51% controlling interest in I-Systems..

The year resulted in an overstatement to goodwill an understatement to noncontrolling interests and an overstatement to other reserves on our balance sheet and an overstatement of exchange differences on translation of foreign operations on our income statement.

Please refer to the explanatory note at the beginning of the Form 20-F/A for further detail..

Further, we'd like to point out that the restatement has no impact on previously reported revenue, operating profit loss for the year, adjusted EBITDA, cash from operations or recurring levered free cash flow, nor does this correction affect the company's underlying business operations..

Before I discuss the results, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimers set out at the beginning of the presentation on Slide 2, which should be read in full, along with the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements set out in our earnings release and 6-K filed as well today..

In particular, the information to be discussed may contain forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors some of which are beyond our control, that are difficult to predict and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements or industry results to be materially different from any future results performance or achievements or industry results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of Form 20-F/A filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other filings with the SEC..

We'll also refer to non-IFRS measures that we view as important in assessing the performance of our business. Reconciliation of non-IFRS metrics to the nearest IFRS metrics can be found in our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website..

And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO. .

Thanks, Colby. And welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2022 earnings results call..

We had a solid quarter despite what continues to be a volatile macro environment across the world, seeing continued double-digit organic revenue growth, excluding onetime items, although the higher cost of diesel impacted adjusted EBITDA, while RLFCF benefited from a favorable withholding tax impact and some timing on maintenance CapEx..

Demand continues to track expectations and based on our H1 results and our expectations for the back half of the year, we are raising our 2022 guidance for revenue by $10 million at the midpoint and reiterating our guidance for adjusted EBITDA, RLFCF and capital expenditures. Steve will take you through the results in greater detail..

But before doing so, I'm going to discuss our growth strategy, including a focus on revenue, adjusted EBITDA and RLFCF provide an overview of IHS following our recent acquisition of the MTN South Africa portfolio; and lastly, provide a strategic update on other key topics..

On Slide 4, we again show our revenue, adjusted EBITDA and RLFCF results over the past 5 years that generated organic revenue growth of 18.2%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 15.1% and all RLFCF growth of 14.1% compounded annually during this time..

Given our short existence as a public company, I think it's important to again highlight our long and established track record of generating attractive risk-adjusted growth.

We believe this attractive growth is a function of the key elements of our strategy mainly the strong demand trends in our market, the inherent benefit of the colocation model, thoughtful and prudently financed M&A and a broadening focus on other communications infrastructure solutions, including fiber, all with a focus on driving attractive profitability and ultimately, ROIC for our shareholders over time..

The chart on Slide 5 are similar to those on Slide 4 except the focus on the past 5 quarters as opposed to 5 years. You can see we delivered double-digit growth for reported revenue, while organic revenue growth of 10% was impacted by the onetime benefits we highlighted last year. Are in line with the expectations we communicated last quarter..

These onetime benefits to revenue last year as well as additional onetime benefits to adjusted EBITDA last year also impacted our adjusted EBITDA growth, which will have otherwise also grown double digits, while RLFCF was further impacted by the timing of interest payments following our bond raise late last year..

On Slide 6, you can see that including the 5,691 towers we acquired in South Africa on May 31. IHS owns nearly 40,000 towers across 11 countries making us the third largest independent multinational tower company by tower count in the world.

This geographical scale helps both further diversified our revenue stream, having initially been founded as the Nigerian tower company, but also positions us in some of the largest emerging markets in the world by GDP, including Nigeria, Brazil and South Africa..

In fact, assuming a full quarter impact from South Africa, our largest market, Nigeria, now accounts for approximately 66% of total revenue versus 76% just before we entered Lat Am and that's despite what continues to be outsized growth in Nigeria. Separately, please note we now disclose revenue by our top customers in our appendix on Page 22..

Turning to Slide 7. As I just mentioned, we have now closed the additional acquisition of 5,691 towers from MTN South Africa and are now the largest independent TowerCo in the country..

Our South Africa team is led by Sandile Msimango part of our new office in Johannesburg. I've known Sandile some time as he previously worked with MTN, where he led the strategic M&A and disposal across MTN's entire footprint for the company's passive infrastructure..

As Africa's most industrialized market, South Africa represents a huge opportunity for IHS having established a strong foundation in our other African markets, the entry into South Africa is timely. South Africa is the young and growing population of 60 million people who are increasingly data driven..

In March, the country's telecom regulators ICASA concluded their multi-brand option of mobile spectrum, which has given MNOs greater scope to invest in their network. Longer-term, we believe this pave the way for 5G, which will require more towers than technological innovation..

We are already seeing the first season of this, the South Africa's 5G population coverage having increased from 0.7% in 2020 to 7.5% in 2021.

In 2021, MTN South Africa became the first MNO to reach over 1,000 5G sites in any country on the African continent and announced their target to cover at least 25% of South Africa relation with 5G by the end of 2022..

Indeed, by 2026, it's estimated that 21% of South Africa SIMs would be 5G. These trends offer IHS a unique commercial opportunity on the onset. In addition, our provision of power Managed Services on approximately 13,000 sites for MTN is a key differentiator.

This solution, which today is largely focused on battery backup is expected to drive attractive returns in line with our colocation business..

Given the elevated levels of load shedding or turning in the country of late, the need for alternative solutions to the group are increasing, and we are working with MTN to help further hold for their power requirements. In due course, we hope to broaden this service to benefit other MNOs, who also face the same challenges resulting from power cuts..

I also want to acknowledge the recent news that MTN and Telecom S.A. have announced they have entered into discussions for MTN to acquire Telecom, subsequently followed by range announcement of its interest in merging with Telecom S.A. We awaits to see what ultimately occurs.

However, we stand ready to support all of our customers and believe the opportunity for IHS in South Africa remains highly attractive..

Turning to Slide 8. Starting with M&A, we are happy with our current geographical footprint. And as we noted last quarter, our current focus on M&A is in our existing markets with a particular focus on South Africa and Brazil. As we look to leverage our cost structures that are already in place.

As part of our M&A strategy, we have been evaluating opportunities across fiber, power and data centers..

While we expect towers to represent the overwhelming majority of our revenue streams for the foreseeable future, given fiber and data center infrastructure is less mature in our market. We believe our overall value proposition will increase with a broader and more varied solutions.

Regardless of the specific assets, though, any transaction we do aims to be accreted to our long-term value and return thresholds only increase as cost of capital increases..

In addition, while we are willing to increase our leverage for the right opportunity, we expect to remain within our 3% to 4% target range..

Moving on to upstreaming. We upstream $147 million in Nigeria for our second quarter '22 given the outsized level of upstreaming, we have already completed this year, as of June 30, we had -- as of June 30, we had approximately $67 million royalty in cash in Nigeria, of which $45 million was held in Naira and the remainder in USD..

It's important to note, though, that despite the challenging macro environment, we have strong relationships with our local banking partners, that we do not speculate on ForEx movement and that we will continue to upstream prudently when needed as we have a long track record for doing so..

Shifting to our stock liquidity.

As you will recall, in May, our Board exercise effect weighs the registered offering requirement for the first month of shares subject to the lockup arrangement under our shareholders' agreement, which block included upwards of 78 million shares, which would effectively be available we bought in the discussion of their holders subject to the applicable securities goal..

We will continue to evaluate options that we believe will enhance the value of the company, while at the same time, we continue to focus on delivering against our publicly stated fundamental objectives and establishing a track record with investors..

Lastly, I'd like to conclude my remarks on Page 8 by discussing our plan Project Green announcement this fall. As many of you know, in many of the places we operate, grid connectivity has been unavailable or unreliable.

And thus, in order to provide connectivity, a service that is increasingly being regarded as a human right across the globe, we and our MNO customers have had to historically rely on these run generators to power our site..

While we have historically worked to augment our use of diesel with alternative exploration, including the use of batteries and solar, with 20% -- 28% of our towers in Africa still run solely on a generator as of year-end '21, we feel we can do more..

Our team and I personally have been busy in the last few months analyzing the various opportunities across many of the countries we operate in to reduce our consumption of diesel and our greenhouse gas emissions, while our combination of connecting more sites to the grid, which just a few short years ago was not an option in many locations and adding more battery and solar solutions..

At this point, we are finalizing our plans, but intend to share these with you before we report earnings next quarter.

While being cautious as to how much I can discuss now, we expect to start investing in Project Green in the second half of this year, which means at the time we announced Project Green, we expect to be raising our 2022 CapEx guidance..

We expect the returns to be attractive and to give you a sense of the opportunity. In Q2 2022, we spent $94 million on diesel plus last year, we spent approximately $69 million on diesel generator maintenance. Combined, this equates to nearly $450 million of annualized spend and represents the opportunity set from which we will extract savings..

Lastly, you see on Page 9, we published our 2021 sustainability report in May. This was our fourth sustainability report and serves as our second Communication on Progress, CoP for our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact initiatives. As I have said many times, sustainability is the core to who we are and to our business..

First and foremost, we believe that our business model is inherently sustainable and that we deliver shared infrastructure solutions in emerging markets that promote digital connectivity and inclusion and improve the life of the communities we serve..

This encourages data access to things like education, health care and financial services, while the infrastructure sharing reduces the environmental footprint of the telecom landscape in our geographies.

With Project Green, it is not that our drive to reduce the role of diesel in our business will further improve the environment, the impact of the communications infrastructure that we operate and upon which our MNO customers and their customers depend..

Furthermore, the initiatives you see on the slide here are but a few of the many in the ways in which I've just seeks to make a difference in our community..

And with that, I will turn the call over to Steve. .

Thanks, Sam. And hello, everyone..

Turning to Slide 10. As Sam mentioned, we are pleased with how the business performed in Q2 2022, and are excited to have enter the South African marketing and leadership position.

You will note that towers, tenants and lease amendments as well as consolidated revenue have all increased by double-digit percentages versus Q2 last year, driven by both organic and inorganic activity across that markets..

Before we go into the financial performance, I want to remind everyone of the onetime $24 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2021 and the associated onetime $61 million of adjusted EBITDA and RLFCF in that same second quarter 2021.

This performance last year obviously impacts our ability with performance this quarter in 2022, so we will draw out these differences over the next number of slides, so you can understand the true performance of the business this quarter..

So Q2 this year, we delivered a 16% growth in consolidated revenue versus last year. A quarter last year that included that $24 million of onetime revenue, whereas 2Q 2022 adjusted EBITDA and recurring levered free cash flow appear lower due to those onetime items in Q2 of last year, as well as factors that I'll address momentarily..

Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 51.1%. Our level of investment in CapEx to grow the business increased by 93% in the second quarter and our consolidated net leverage ratio increased to 3.1x as we had messaged last quarter in both instances, largely due to the South African and Brazilian acquisition in recent quarters..

Turning to our revenue on a consolidated basis. Slide 11 shows the comparing to last 16.4% reported consolidated revenue growth. Organic revenue growth of 9.9% in Q2 2022 were driven primarily by CPI escalation, lease amendments, power indexation included within other and FX resets as well as new sites and new colocation..

The level of escalations you see reflects our contract protections in the current inflation environment and together with FX resets, offset the negative FX impact by 520 basis points. In terms of the other categories, power indexation contributed $8 million and the Nigerian fiber business and I-Systems together another $5 million..

This was more than offset by the absence of the $24 million of onetime revenue in Q2 2021 that I just mentioned, and the reduction in revenue recognition from a slowdown in payments from our smallest key customer in Nigeria. On the right, you can see the organic growth rates of each of our segments, which I will talk about in the next slide. .

Inorganic growth was 8.7% in Q2 '22, primarily reflecting the South African acquisition in the quarter, GTS SP5 in Q1 '22 and I-Systems in Q4 last year..

Turning to the segment review on Slide 12. First, I'll walk through the Nigeria business and then highlight the other segments.

Nigerian macro environment in Q2 '22 saw increased volatility quarter-on-quarter with real GDP growth expanding by 3.1%, bringing the full year 2022 growth rate to 3.4%, while inflation increased to 18.6% this past June versus 17.8% in June last year..

The NAFEX currency rate ended the quarter at NGN 425 to $1, whilst FX reserves marginally decreased to $38.9 billion from $39.3 billion at March 31.

Brent crude oil averaged approximately $114 per barrel in Q2, up approximately 2/3 from the same period last year, and we have recently begun to see an increased premium applied to the importation of refined products like diesel into Nigeria that weakened the historical correlation we've seen between global price of oil and local price of diesel..

This emanates from the reduction in global supply of refined products as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine situation. Telecommunications remains an important part of the Nigerian economy, accounting for around 12.6% of GDP in Q4 last year.

We continue to monitor economic conditions in Nigeria closely particularly in light of the cascading effect of the Russia-Ukraine situation and the upcoming presidential election in Nigeria in February 2023..

And of course, we remain in close contact with our key customers of which 2 have recently published healthy top line results in their businesses. Against this backdrop, our Nigerian business once again delivered strong results in the second quarter, tracking well on our key metrics.

Top line growth was driven primarily by CPI escalators, lease amendments, power indexation and FX resets. And our account grew by 1.3%, inclusive of some plan decommissioning, our total tenant count increased by 4.4% versus the prior period, and the colocation rate was up at 1.53x..

These amendments continue to be a strong driver of growth with this increasing by 44% year-on-year as our customers added additional equipment to our sites, particularly for the upgrades. The improved operational performance is reflected in our Nigeria financial results.

Q2 2022 revenue of $321 million increased 8.3% year-on-year on a reported basis and 10.4% on an organic basis..

Remembering the $24 million onetime revenue in the second quarter of last year was in the Nigerian segment and therefore, hold this growth percentage down.

The revenue growth reflects increased activities from 2 of our key customers, partly offset by an approximate $4 million decrease in revenue from a smaller key customer, which stems from a decrease in revenue recognition due to a delay in payments..

Q2 2022 adjusted EBITDA in Nigeria was $184 million. A 24% decrease from a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 57.2%, reflecting in part, an increase in power generation cost of $37 million and the absence of that total $61 million of onetime benefit in Q2 of 2021.

In Q2 this year, adjusted EBITDA in Nigeria was additionally impacted by that reduction in revenue recognition from our smallest key customer in the market, as I just mentioned..

Let me now summarize the results of our other segments. Our Sub-Saharan African segment now reflects the inclusion of our South African business and consequently, towers and tenants increased substantially versus last year.

Q2 '22 revenue of $95 million increased by 13%, of which organic revenue grew by 4.6%, primarily through CPI escalated new sites and colocation..

Inorganic revenue contributed $10.7 million driven by the 1-month contribution from the South African acquisition, while the negative FX impact was $3.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 15%, again, driven primarily by the increased revenue included from South Africa, offset by increases in maintenance, diesel and security costs.

The adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 55.8%..

Turning to our Lat Am segment, towers, tenant revenue and adjusted EBITDA were increase substantially due to the meaningful inorganic growth, which continued this year with the GTS SP5 acquisition..

In Brazil, our second largest market overall, with 6,869 towers, macro conditions were somewhat mixed with FX rates, interest rates, annual inflation or appreciated..

In our Lat Am segment, overall, towers increased by over 50% and tenants by over 70% due to the acquisition. Q2 of this year, revenue basically tripled with organic revenue increasing 28% driven by CPI escalations, new sites and colocation with inorganic revenue increasing by 164% from the acquisitions, and there was also a positive 9% FX impact.

Adjusted EBITDA also tripled with margin of 72.2%..

In MENA, towers grew by nearly 18% and tenants by nearly 19% in the quarter, and revenue grew by 24%, including 13.5% organic revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA grew by nearly 35%. In all of these cases, mainly as a result of closing the fourth tranche of the Kuwait acquisition and from new site construction.

The adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 47%..

Turning to Slide 13. I'll discuss our KPIs. As of June 30, our tower count was 39,052, up by nearly 9,000 sites to over -- over 29% from Q2 2021. This was driven largely by our South African and GTS SP5 acquisitions as well as ongoing new site builds in Nigeria, Lat Am and SSA.

Collectively, these new build programs accounted for most of the 240 towers built during the second quarter, as you can see in the chart on the top right..

In addition to the new sites reported in 1Q and 2Q of this year, we also have a significant number of rural new sites under development in Nigeria that we expect to go live in the second half of 2022..

Total tenants grew over 26% year-on-year to 57,381 with the colocation rate at 1.47x, down 0.04x versus last year. Two things to continue to point out related to our colocation rate, which we define as total number of tenants across the portfolio divided by total number of towers at a given time..

Firstly, lease amendments, which are a significant factor in our Nigerian segment and again, grew substantially are not included. And secondly, when you're a significant acquirer and builder of towers as we are, and you're typically adding to the denominator period-on-period, even as we continue to lease up our portfolio..

For example, our South African acquisition has a 1.2x colocation rate, which, of course, is lower at inception than our portfolio average. We continue to see no reason why we can't get to 2x or greater on our overall portfolio over the long-term and our more mature portfolios of towers are at or above that.

Lease amendments increased by 43% year-on-year, but customers added equipment to their site, partially 4G upgrades in Nigeria..

On Slide 14, you can see our consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins. In Q2 2022, IHS generated $468 million in reported revenue, a 16% increase versus Q2 last year, while organic revenue growth was around 10%.

Each demonstrating the continued strong top line growth trends of the businesses led by Nigeria and Lat Am in particular..

Moreover, reported revenue growth was nearly 24% and organic growth nearly 17% after excluding the $24 million of additional nonrecurring revenue from Q2 last year. Overall, we continue to grow well in line with our stated objectives to seek double-digit revenue growth on an annual basis..

Regarding our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins. In Q2 2022, adjusted EBITDA of $239 million decreased 13% versus the prior year, but increased almost 12% after excluding the nonrecurring items from last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 61.1%, down from Q2 of last year..

The year-over-year changes in adjusted EBITDA, excluding the onetime benefits last year primarily reflect the increase in revenue we've discussed partially offset with year-on-year increase in cost of sales, mainly due to higher diesel costs as well as increased SG&A associated with the public company..

Power generation cost of sales increased by $38 million primarily in our Nigeria segment as we note higher local cost of diesel in Nigeria given global reduction in refined products. However, these increased costs were partially offset by an $8 million increase from power indexation year-over-year.

And I'll speak more about the diesel impact from Nigeria shortly during our guidance section..

We also try to increasingly prioritize alternative sources of power solution to reduce the dependency on diesel. And as Sam mentioned, I expect to unveil the details about diesel and power emission reduction plan, Project Green later this year..

On Slide 15, we review our recurring leverage free cash flow, which we report in a manner consistent with our U.S. peers.

We generated RLFCF of $88 million in Q2 2022, down versus Q2 2021, primarily due to a combination of factors, including, again, that $61 million of nonrecurring items from Q2 last year that made the prior period appear higher, also the inclusion of $30 million of interest costs in the quarter this year due to a change in timing of our bond coupon payments post our November 2021 bond refinancing and also a favorable withholding tax impact in Nigeria..

Excluding the nonrecurring items last year and normalizing for the new Q2 2022 interest costs RLFCF would have increased by approximately 5%. Our RLFCF cash conversion rate was 36.6%, down on the year, but up format 100 basis points from last quarter.

As you think about your models for the second half, given the positive impact from timing of the maintenance CapEx we've seen in 2Q '22, we expect a step up in maintenance CapEx spend in 3Q '22..

Additionally, there will be higher interest expense than in Q2 given new South Africa related financing and volume coupon phasing. That will reduce our RLFCF quarter-over-quarter, but [ RSD2 ] should be similar to the second quarter..

Turning to CapEx. In Q2 2022, CapEx of $147 million increased 93% year-on-year, primarily due to increases in LatAm, following the I-Systems net to client acquisitions. Increased CapEx in connection with the South Africa acquisition and the license renewal in Cameroon as well as increased CapEx in Nigeria relating to new site CapEx..

On Slide 16, we look at our capital structure related items. At June 30, 2022, we had approximately $3.7 billion of external debt and IFRS 16 lease liabilities, up from almost $3.1 billion at the end of March 2022.

This change was driven in large part by increased debt from the $280 million drawdown on our bridge loan in connection with the [ MTN ] acquisition as well as the implementation of a local credit facility in South Africa and facilities drawn down in Brazil..

Of the $3.7 billion of debt, $1.94 billion represent financing and $332 million of our senior credit facilities at our Nigeria segment. Our undrawn group revolving credit facility remained at $270 million.

Cash and cash equivalents increased to $567 million at the end of the quarter in terms of where that cash is held approximately 8% of the total cash was held in Naira and our Nigeria business and most of the remaining cash was held in U.S. dollars group level..

In terms of upstreaming, while we intend to disclose the amount, we upstream on our 4Q earnings call each year, on our first quarter 2022 call, we did disclose that we've already sourced an upstream over $100 million in Nigeria.

And following and including the completion of that upstream, we have now upstreamed a total $147 million from Nigeria as of the end of Q2 2022..

This upstream satisfied all USD debt obligations for this year, which is one of the objectives of our upstreaming program that we don't expect late on the currency in the upstream as and when necessary. The conversion rate was at a previous to the current FX rate that meaningfully belays the parallel rate..

Our consolidated net leverage was approximately $3.2 billion with a consolidated net leverage ratio of 3.1x, which now reflects the closing of the South Africa acquisition and the related financing. This is at the low end of our net leverage target range of 3 to 4x and further demonstrates our strong balance sheet.

You'll note that we're now highlighting that 77% of our debt linked to hard currencies with a fixed floating ratio of 63%, 37%, respectively. Our weighted average cost of debt is 7.8% as of 30 June 2022..

Now moving to Slide 17, you can see we are raising our FY '22 revenue guidance by $10 million at the midpoint of the range and that we are maintaining our guidance for adjusted EBITDA, RLFCF and CapEx. Step-up in revenue largely reflects upside from the updated FX rates, we are now assuming a greater power indexation revenue..

As announced, we completed the MTN South Africa acquisition on May 31. And in the abbreviated quarter i.e., 1-month, we did not see any incremental pass-through associated revenue on the 5,691 acquired towers that will come into our revenue and costs in due course. We continue to exclude it from our guidance as we did last quarter..

Speaking to adjusted EBITDA and RLFCF debt guidance for a moment, we want to acknowledge that the price of diesel in Nigeria is proving more dynamic than initially anticipated as a result of an increased premium being applied to the importation of refined products like diesel into the country..

This is widen the effective spread between global oil price and local diesel price in Nigeria, although they remain approximately correlated. Whilst we saw some impact of this in Q2, we cautiously assume this may continue for the rest of this year. With oil currently around $100 per barrel as we sit here in mid-August.

We are looking at whether we can lock in our diesel price for the remainder of the year..

This will supersede our previous statement that every $5 change in oil should equate to an inverse $7 million annualized impact to adjusted EBITDA. Given all of these dynamics, we feel comfortable with our adjusted EBITDA and RLFCF range has is, but continue to closely monitor the situation, and we'll update you all at Q3..

Regarding new sites, we reduced our target to approximately 1,750 from approximately 2,350 towers. It has a minimal impact on our financials and is due to timing delays resulting in part from the current macro environment. And as noted earlier, we expect the sizable step up in the second half, particularly in Nigeria from rural and new sites..

Overall, we believe the business is proving resilient, given the macro headwinds we are facing. Taking all this into account, we believe that revenue for FY '22 will now range between $1.885 billion and $1.905 billion on a reported basis, which represents a 20% increase at the midpoint of the range versus last year and approximately 15% organically..

Having just lapped a more difficult year-on-year comparisons in the second quarter of 2022 that drove organic growth to approximately 10%. We now expect organic growth to rebound back into the high teens in the second half.

We continue to believe that adjusted EBITDA will range between $1.005 billion and $1.025 billion, while we continue to believe that our RLFCF will range between $310 million to $330 million..

Here, the key point remains that we're carrying $23 million increased interest costs year-on-year from the bond bill that we didn't make last year. And we are also remaining cautious on the wider interest rate environment around world impacting our interest rates. Also, clearly, diesel price impact dropped straight down to RLFCF..

We are also maintaining our CapEx guidance of $545 million to $585 million, as noted, expect to increase our 2022 CapEx guidance late this year when we announced Project Green, and we look to invest this year to start driving savings in 2023..

On Slide 18, we discuss how FX impacts our business. On the top, you can see revenue by reporting currency, whereas on the bottom, we provide the breakout of revenue based on contract split.

For those who may be less familiar, recall that while we are paid in local currency in each of the countries we operate in, in certain situations, portions of the contracts are linked to hard currencies such as the U.S.

dollar or euro, where the amount of customer pay in local currency adjust based on the exchange rate associated with hard currencies..

These structures help protect against FX devaluation, the impact of which is reflected in our FX reset component in our organic revenue breakout. More information on our FX resets, please see Page 20 in the appendix.

Also, please be aware that there is not a hard currency component to our contract structure in South Africa, which should impact the percentages shown on Slide 19 with a full quarter impact next quarter..

This now brings us to the end of our formal presentation. But before we open for questions, I want to take a moment to also cover what call we mentioned earlier about the restatement on our financial statements for the 2021 fiscal year, and the amendment to our annual report on Form 20-F/A filed this morning..

As we said, this related to an error on the regional business combination accounting for the company's November 2020 acquisition of the 51% controlling interest in I-systems.

While we're disappointed that this error occurred anticipating the restatement, we'd again like to emphasize that the restatement has no impact on previously reported revenue, operating profit, loss for the year, adjusted EBITDA, cash from operations, recurring levered free cash flow or leverage nor does this direction affect the company's underlying business operations..

As you will have seen from our 2Q 2022 results this morning, we have also updated the balance sheet position further as planned with no more course purchase price allocation accounting for the same I-Systems acquisition, which gets done in the quarters post completion of the deal..

With that, we thank you for your time today. And operator, please now open the line for questions. .

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Phil Cusick from JPMorgan. .

Steve, I wonder if you can dig more into your comments on the relative price of diesel versus oil? And any update on the refinery in Nigeria.

And then, Sam, can you just give us an update on the Nigeria business in general, anything shifting among your customers as currency volatility has been a little tougher?.

Thanks for the question. So the quick one first on the refinery, no real update what we've guide you before. We think it's late this year, probably more likely post the elections in Nigeria next year coming online to that sort of end of February 2023 when those elections are so, I would expect the refinery to come online after that being well..

In terms of diesel price, yes, as you said, we've seen a bit of fluctuation around that in the quarter, in particular. So we've headline saw oil price moved from $101 to $114 Q1 to Q2.

We got a bit of a catch-up to do with pass-through revenue as well, which is reflected here and then we've seen sort of, call it, $3.5 million to $4 million impact on pure cost running through this quarter..

So that's where we're saying being more cautious through the second half of the year. And as I said in the prepared remarks, that's really driving from an increase in cost green refined products into Nigeria. So there's a shortage in refined product globally. And so getting to Nigeria as cost a bit more in the quarter. .

And Phil, in terms of customers, Nigeria remains growing at a quick pace. MTN declared the results just recently.

And if see a 50% increase in the revenue year, year-on-year, certainly it's -- your similar or by slightly less aggressive data as there has more headwind because of the diesel and at the end, but the trend in Nigeria remains the same, and we expect it to continue in the foreseeable future at this price discussion in the current political situation?.

Okay.

And if I can 1 more, what is the potential to upstream cash out of Nigeria look like now? Given you've already done a lot, are you effectively out of that market until after the election?.

We're not out of that market, no, but we will continue to assess through the second half of this year, whether upstreaming makes sense based on the cost to do it. So as you say, we've done a significant amount in -- well in this Q2 of this year..

So we're okay from that perspective. But if at the right price, then we'll look at it, but we don't need to. .

The next question comes from Greg Williams from Cowen. .

First one is on the M&A landscape.

Just wondering, what you guys are seeing if multiples are remaining sort of stubbornly high or if they're softening and maybe the cadence of the deals you're seeing?.

Second is just on the tower build guidance. You've lowered it in Nigeria and Brazil, and you mentioned timing and general market conditions.

Is that out of your hands being permitting and inflation or labor and equipment? Or is that something under your control because of rising cost of capital?.

Thanks, Greg. So the last one on the BTS. That's really a few things. So firstly, customer demand just squeeze into next year; and secondly, supply chain of getting equipment in the right areas. So we expect most of those volumes to catch-up through the course of 2023. So really, it's a timing piece.

The reason for the reduction as we go in towards the back end of the year..

And then on the M&A landscape multiples, I think we're -- Sam will jump in as well. I think we're seeing a slight cooling in multiples, but it really depends on case-by-case situation. We've completed a number of acquisitions in recent quarters. So a busy kind of integrated now into the business..

But I would say, yes, we started to see slight cooling as a buyer potentially, we'd like to see more cooling. .

Yes. I think we've seen some processes being closed due to kind of like higher expectations from the sellers.

We've done the deal with GTS in Brazil, the deal with the MTN South Africa, both came at nice multiples, SBA just announced recently with GTS, which was also -- which also came a floor multiple, we don't see pressure on seller to seller, to be honest..

But again, that could be -- there could be a lagging aspect. But for sure, we've seen some softening in general. .

The next question comes from Brett Feldman from Goldman Sachs. .

And sorry to follow-up on the diesel question. But if I just think about the original guidance expectation that the average cost of diesel would be about $120 a barrel over the course of the year that's about a 20% premium to what diesel is actually going for in the market.

So it would seem like you've got a 20% buffer to account for this incremental cost of importing refined products..

And I'm curious, is that essentially what the premium is now? Or is there actually still some conservatism baked into what you're implying? And then I know that you don't have anything for Egypt in your guidance, but hoping if you could just give us an update on where you stand with the opportunity to start building out in Egypt?.

Brett, as I said, there's some -- in terms of the numbers that we're getting here in Q2, there's a movement from $100 to $114, which [indiscernible], is less than $120 in guide, but there's also some, let's say, volatility in terms of timing of collection of pass-through revenue as well, which is not reflected here..

There's not quite as simple to doing a apple to apples. But you're right, there is some additional buffer in there in terms of the premium that is costing us to get into the country. And that's what we said. As I mentioned before, there's about $3.5 million to $4 million of real cost pressure coming to this quarter from oil -- from deal. .

And then in terms of Egypt, no, still outside of the guidance. Still a country which we obviously did a lot of work in talking to the customers, posing different things to them. We'll bring it to the guide when we feel like there's something concrete to do so..

So still very much a country of interest, but not at a stage yet where we've got say something in source signed in terms of rollout. .

The next question comes from Jon Atkin from RBC Capital Markets. .

On the build-to-suit topic, I wonder if you could just remind us what your expectations are around multiple tenancy, as well as to what degree in general, perhaps on a prospective build-to-suit commitments, do you see competition for these contracts with the MNOs?.

John, so you won't be surprised, let me say, different market-by-market. I mean, generally speaking, we would expect BTS were newbuild towers to get to 2x between 5 and, let's say, 7 years, depending on the market in which there is. Now that picture can be slightly moderator.

For example, the rural rollout that we have in Nigeria, that's not intended to get to 2. That's really a 1-plus part of it for the colo as well. So it's not quite as simple as that..

But if we're just talking traditional macro site, we hope that it is just get to 2x in 5 to 7 years depending on the country in which we operate. And then in terms of competition for new build sites -- sorry, go. .

No, please go ahead. .

So in terms of competition for new build sites, again, market-by-market, somewhere like Brazil is reasonably competitive given the amount of telcos that are in the market as we're all aware, it's less so where we still continue to get decent volume, decent market share in countries like Nigeria and across our Sub-Saharan in market..

Middle East at the country there, we're pretty much the only provider of the [indiscernible] so sort of a competitive market. .

Okay. 2 more then. First, just on the hybrid solutions and then adding grid connectivity. I know you're going to talk about that more later.

But just in general, anything about the velocity at which you will test those conversions, particularly the on-grid portion, but also hybrid, anything different that we're seeing now compared to previous periods? Maybe give us a little bit of a sense of that. .

We want to intensify the usage of these products, technology has evolved, the efficiency of solar have evolved, the efficiency of lithium-ion kind of cycles that can generate versus calls.

All these have evolved, and we basically have revisited our network across the various geography, and we realize there are a lot of pockets where we can design particular products that can improve the efficiency of the usage of diesel, and that is basically the essence of what we're trying to do.

I mean, we're trying to reduce our diesel consumption, but it is definitely a renewable rate. That's the essence of the philosophy, Jon. .

And then lastly, just any quick update on -- in building small cell fiber connectivity, some of your non-macro tower solutions?.

We remain one of the biggest SaaS players in Brazil across our markets. We remain committed to small cells, but haven't seen a substantial uptick in the line of the usage of small cells in our market, but we are ready.

I mean we feel that it will take some time given that 5G rollout, 5G has just been auctioned in Brazil, 5G spectrum has just been awarded in South Africa. It hasn't happened in Nigeria on a scale yet. On a larger scale..

We haven't seen a lot of 5G deployments happening just yet.

And we see at the beginning, it's probably be some kind of overlay layer using macro towers before it moves into more small cells and building coverage, but that would happen at some point, and we are ready, given that our fiber-to-the-home network that we have acquired in Brazil covering 70,000 kilometers of fiber pair..

We're building aggressively in Nigeria. We have a land bank in Brazil that we acquired when we acquired Skysites 2 years ago. So we are ready, but we haven't seen an uptick in the usage of sales as of now. .

I think, Jon, we're still -- you've heard me talk about 5G rollout before, and I think our base case is still that it's starting to happen in pockets across the different markets, but real commercial rollout, we would expect probably end of next year in 2024, and I think we're changing that fee right now it seems to be out there... .

So some of our customers in Africa, Jon, are beginning to talk more about a faster deployment, but nothing is reflected in our guidance. Until they take concrete steps and make concrete moves, we will stay prudent around that topic. .

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Simon Coles from Barclays. .

Just to dive in a little bit on South Africa. There's obviously lots of potential scenarios that are being talked about in the press.

Could you just remind us of sort of the protection do you have in your contracts on any potential consolidation risk?.

And then, if we think about the growth outlook for South Africa, these conversations between the operators maybe push back some of the colocation growth that you were hoping for, given they're in discussions about various other things, and that's mainly going to be a lot of it is ahead for that?.

And then maybe it's too early, but I'll try.

On Project Green, how should we think about the scope of this project? Is it targeting across the whole group? Or will you probably start going market-by-market, or maybe starting with some of the smaller markets before maybe moving on to the larger ones like Nigeria?.

Thanks, Simon. Look, starting with South Africa, we have a liquid protection in our contracts. I mean, I'm not going to go into the details of that at the moment, but we do have, I think with production.

Having said that, we are all busy and we've kind of -- we've highlighted the fact that Telecom MTN have already announced the discussions around the potential merger [indiscernible] of kind of like rate their hand and said, what about us, we will potentially candidate?.

Or there are also public processes with some of these MNOs trying to sell their towers, which we are involved in at the moment. Look, we will monitor the situation and see how it evolves. But to be honest, I do see opportunities in things like that happening.

There are synergies, there are decommissioning opportunities that could improve margin, that would also generate growth with consolidation of the feature. .

So I would only look at the last half, half empty year, there are other positive aspects that could come out of this. .

I mean, I would also add Simon, generally speaking, bigger healthier customers are right? So whichever combination you look at MTN or Telecom [indiscernible] or versus stakes quote, you all tend to play out positively in the future as well, especially as we get the 5G coming in South Africa. So we're pretty helpful. .

I think the important dynamic also in South Africa, Simon, before I move on that should be kept under close watch is a load shedding situation. The situation with [indiscernible] sadly, it doesn't seem to be improving, which means the MNO, the carriers will need to kind of pay special attention, special focus for that..

Given our expertise, our very deep expertise in managing power in Nigeria and [indiscernible] and there is East Sub-Saharan and Africa. We feel we are at the foremost of finding solutions to that problem in South Africa. We and MTN have a deal already to cover roughly 3,000 sites and hope to extend that over time..

Other carriers, we hope to also extend coverage or the protection to MTN and even further or deeper level if that happened, hopefully not. So a lot of opportunities in South Africa that fiber-to-the-home is also an opportunity for us on for the fiber-to-the-tower is the key angle.

But again, South Africa remain underpenetrated when it comes to covering home..

So massive opportunity that could be considered over time for a new block [indiscernible]. So the opportunities are fast, not only around towers, but there could be also other aspects at Power as a Service and or fiber or other adjacencies..

Now in terms of the Green Project, the focus is largely on Nigeria at the beginning. I mean, we have 11 countries across our portfolio, 760 million people covered, of course, the Lat Am situation, Brazil, Colombia, Peru is not as critical as the African situation, Kuwait, is not as critical..

And even within the African geographies, you'll find that Nigeria is most critical given its size and given it's dependent on diesel, 95% of our towers in Nigeria, Simon, do not have a grid connection. I mean that's the size of the problem. In a country with 250million people. I mean that's the size of the problem, flashed opportunity for us. .

Operator, there is no more additional sell-side questions in the queue. I think, we'll conclude the call here. We thank you, everyone, for joining, and this does conclude our call. .

Thank you. Thank you all. .

That brings us to the end of the IHS Holding Limited 2Q 2022 earnings results call. Should you have any questions, please contact the Investor Relations team via the e-mail Investor Relations at ihstowers.com. The management team, thank you for your participation today, and wish you a good day..