Airtel Africa Plc

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Airtel Africa's nine-month 24 results. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the call. If you should need assistance during the conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this event is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Shogun Ogunsanya. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you for joining us on today's call. And as always, joined by our CFO, Jaydeep, and our Deputy CFO and Head of Investor Relations, Pierre. You're going to be asking your question very shortly. But first, I'd like to provide you with a brief overview of the performance over the last nine months. We have reported a strong operating performance in constant currency with revenue growth of 20%, leading to reported revenues of $3.86 billion over the nine-month period. In Q3 third quarter, we saw constant currency revenue growth accelerate from 19% in Q2 to 21% in Q3, reflecting continued success in astrology across all of our three regions. The strong top-line performance Combined with further cost efficiencies, EBITDA 21.9% take point higher in constant currency terms, leading to an industry-leading EBITDA margin of 49.4% for the group. Given the strength of this performance to date, and according to leverage, the board has approved a share buyback scheme of up to $100 million. starting in early March 2024, over a 12-month period. On a reported currency basis, our results have been impacted by the recent currency devaluation we've seen across a number of markets, particularly in Nigeria, where following the sharp devaluation in June, there was a further 22.5% devaluation over the last quarter. And in Malawi, the currency devalued by 44% in November, This has led to a decline in reported revenues of 1.5% over the nine-month period, with EBITDA largely stable over the year. This backdrop has led to a decrease in US dollar liabilities in our up-course, resulting in a significant increase in our finance costs, which has impacted our EPS for the period. The recent currency moves do not impart the strategy across our markets, which is to maximize the growth of our business in order to limit the impact of currency admins. We will continue to invest as our mission to transform lives by providing essential, reliable services at an affordable level becomes even more important. Before discussing our performance across our two main reporting segments, I'd like to highlight our Q3 constant currency performance on a regional basis, including both mobile services and mobile money. In Nigeria, we saw an acceleration of our growth to 24.7% in Q3, resulting in a nine-month growth of almost 23%. In East Africa, revenue growth of 25.3% was over one percentage point faster than the previous quarter. The Francophone African region Also saw a similar acceleration in growth to 10.6%. Now, I begin by focusing on the performance of the mobile services segment, our voice and data business. The strong demand for services across our footprint, combined with our focus on affordability in the current inflationary environment, led to a 9.1% increase in the customer base, which when combined with a growth of 8.6%, resulted in constant currency revenue growth of 18.6%. In Nigeria, constant currency mobile service revenue grew 22.7% over the nine-month period. And in East Africa, it grew by 21.2%. Francophone country was up 10.3%. Trends in voice remain very encouraging. With revenue growth of over 11% in constant currency, The very low levels of SIEM penetration and increased minutes across our network continue to support the overall performance. This growth is further supported by 20.5% growth in data revenues, as our focus remains on increasing and improving the network coverage and capacity to drive increased data adoption. We currently have over 34 million 4G customers across the 14 countries. It has increased by almost 45% over the year, and only 23% of our total customers and 55% of our data customers are currently using 4G, giving us the confidence in sustained data growth going forward. The mobile money business continues to see a very strong performance, with 33% constant currency revenue growth in Q3, which is an acceleration from the previous quarter. and it is the fastest growing mobile money business in Africa. This strong growth was driven by continued customer growth of almost 20% and further enhancement of the mobile money ecosystem, driving transaction value almost 35% higher in constant currency. As previously noted, the strong top line performance combined with a continued focus on cost efficiencies, supported EBITDA growth of 21.9% in constant currency terms, resulting in a 47 basis point expansion in our EBITDA margin to 49.94% in the nine-month period. This margin improvement was particularly pleasing given the increased energy cost and FX pressures in the period. It is a reflection of our focus on cost optimization. And as I mentioned earlier, finance costs were materially impacted by the exceptional currency devaluation seen in Nigeria in June and more recently in Malawi in November, which resulted in a $330 million after-tax charge impacting our earnings per share. After adjusting for these losses, EPS before exceptional items came in at 7.1 cents, down 35%, reflecting the many currency headwinds, which impacted FX losses and transition in part of the currency weakness in operating results. As many of you know, the net has continued to see product pressure on Q3, resulting in a $140 million FX loss after tax, which we've not classified as an exception item in this quarter. If you adjust for the impact of this narrative evaluation over the full nine-month period, EPS before accepting Athens would have been 12.5 cents. Briefly, in terms of the balance sheet at the end of December, our leverage ratio has reduced to 1.3 times. EBITDA from 1.5x, that's by the impact of connection on EBITDA, our net debt declined to under $3.3 billion from over $3.6 billion a year ago. One of our key priorities over the last few years has been the de-risking of our balance sheet by reducing OATCO debt and reducing other dollar-based debt. At the end of December, we had $560 million of cash at the OATCO This will allow us to fully repay the 550 million OCO debt that is due for repayment in May of 2024. Our capital allocation policy remains unchanged. Our priority is to continue to invest in the business to ensure we future-proof our officials for sustained growth. And we therefore reiterate our previous speaker's guidance of $800 to $825 million for this financial year. The success of our balancing to leveraging has also enabled us to capitalize on other new opportunities, such as our new data center business that we launched in December last year. Furthermore, we will continue to actively reduce our balancing effects exposure and continue to upstream cash from our various hookers to support our shareholder return priorities. As you have seen from our results, Our focus has contributed to strong operational and financial performance, and we continue to demonstrate positive momentum on all of our key operating metrics. Our next time focus will remain on investing in our network and on further expanding our distribution infrastructure to be closer to our customers, at the same time building new services for future growth. Clearly, Our reported results have been impacted by the currency devaluation across a number of markets, mentioned Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, Iberian Kenya. But let me briefly highlight three ways which we aim to limit the impact that this has on our business. First, our priority is to maximize supply and growth to offset potential currency weakness. This is our chief reinvestment into improving network coverage and capacity. to drive very strong subscriber growth and facilitate increased usage. All of this is underpinned by an attractive customer proposition and user experience. If you look at what we've done over the last five years, it will help provide some context. In constant currency, over the last five years, keeps the revenues have increased by more than 18% CAGR and EBITDA by over 22% CAGR. Incorporating the latest currency movements, this is translated into reported currency 5-year KIGA of 9.6%, almost 10% in reported currency, and EBITDA of over 12%. I think this reflects the strength of the business model, despite the macro headwinds which we sometimes face. Secondly, we look to limit the impact of RFS as an operational performance by minimizing foreign exchange-based costs. Once again, over the last five years, despite the currency headwinds, our Q3 reported the bid damages have expanded 5.7 percentage points, reflecting once again the substance of our strategy. And finally, we have to reduce the amount of foreign exchange liabilities in our balance sheet. Currently, 40% of our market rate is in foreign currency. A year ago, it was 55%. However, excluding the outcome bond, which is due for repayment in May, our foreign nursing debt amounts to only 21% of total market debt. It is this strategy that we believe differentiates us. Our approach to the market, the scale of the opportunity, and the willingness to invest significant capital into the market to capture this opportunity has not changed. We are confident that this approach will continue to support our investment case and further enhance shareholder value. In the light of this performance and given the strength of our balance sheet, which is clear from the results we have published today, the board has approved the intention to launch a share buyback program of up to $100 million beginning in early March over a 12-month period. And with that, I'd now like to open the line for questions. for which I'm going to be joined by JD Anpere, operator, and now hand over to you to facilitate the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star and then one to join the question queue. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue. If you do wish to withdraw your question, please press star and then two to remove yourself from the list. Our first question is from John Kouridis of Deutchen Numis. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. Firstly, I wanted to thank Pierre for all the help and advice he's given and wish him the best for the future. Secondly, I'd like to make a request, please, that we were going to have a roundtable discussion after the Q2 results This couldn't happen, unfortunately. Maybe you can consider doing it now-ish. And then two questions. Firstly, on the data center business, it would be really nice to get some sort of basic information about how many data centers do you have or do you plan to have? Where are they? When will the next one open, please? So that's on the data center business. And then on the mobile money business, specifically in Nigeria, I understand that when customers deposit money into Airtel money, you have to pay agents and they earn commission. So as people deposit money, you are actually having a startup loss. How significant is this uh please uh and how how um yeah how significant has it been and of course uh the six million dollar question is when are you likely to start monetizing mobile money in nigeria thank you i'm sure here is a time for a kind word so i'll let him relate to you about on the roundtable event my investor

relationship would get back to you as to when we're going to have the roundtable. Let me take your data center question first. We've got about 48 captive data centers across our portfolio. Those are being used by a GSM business for normal businesses. What we're talking about are telco-agnostic data centers. We put in two. One in Nigeria, Lagos. The second one in Nairobi, Kenya. The one in Nigeria is about 35 takes a megawatt, and the one in Nairobi is going to be about several megawatt. So between the two data centers, we're looking at a capacity of over 40 megawatt. Very early days, we're going to break down in Nigeria in the next couple of weeks, and the one in Kenya will follow soon. Construction takes about two years. So we're looking at them coming into operation probably sometime in 2026. So that's what it is, two data centers. Beyond these two data centers, which are going to be technical agnostic, we've got a number of cable landing stations that we're also going to have smaller data centers. These are the ones we have in Tanzania. We're also looking at one in DRC, one in Gabon. But the big data centers We did talk about the mobile money business. Like I've said to you three quarters ago, the focus of our business in Nigeria is to just create a good base for a viable business. And the base is going to stand on two key pillars. One pillar is a very respectable customer base, which we keep building. And the second is agent network. Not only agents, agents with cash and float that can service the market. We started this journey a few quarters ago. We continue to build on the infrastructure required to make this possible. And I'm very happy with the progress we've made. Unfortunately, a few months ago in December, we got a new direction from the central bank that all customers require different levels of verification. That took us back a number of customers. But we're working on this to comply with all the requirements of CBA. And our focus remains on two things, expanding the customer base, expanding the agent base, agent with load and cash balances. Those are the two clear priorities we're going to continue to focus on before we start thinking of monetization. And in terms of, I mean, us paying money to agents, I mean, when the cash in, that's actually a feature of the mobile money business in most parts of Africa anyway. But the agents are providing the services, they're like mobile ATMs. So they collect money. And once they do that, we need to pay them. We collect money from the customers when they cash out. So that's the model of mobile money business in most parts of the world, especially in Africa. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Rohit Modi of Citi. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. I believe you will be there next quarter, but good luck on your, for your future role. It's a couple of questions from my side. Firstly, if you could give us more color around the situation in Nigeria right now, in terms of getting cash out, what rates you are getting, how easy it is now or how difficult it is now compared to past. Secondly, on your liquidity position, you do have a, refinancing coming you do have a redemption coming in you know and you do have cash which you have highlighted but just trying to understand given most of your cash capex is in usd would that would that mean that you do need a refinancing in future and what kind of interest costs do you expect we should put in our models for you know following future years um Thirdly, in Nigeria, in terms of the price increase situation, are you still negotiating with the regulator, still being followed, or this is something which will not happen, looks unlikely in the near future? Thank you.

I'm going to just answer them randomly. Let me start with the liquidity position. I'm sure Jadid would come in and offer more like this. I mean, we do have over $560 million cash. when the vouchers and so on and so that is settled. And Jerry would come in at the end to just talk about that with my liquidity in general. In terms of the pricing in Nigeria, pricing in Nigeria is regulated. You need leave of the regulator before you take price off. But like I've said numerous times, our model is quite different. We don't use any price to drive the revenue accretion. We used to say it's customer addition and you say growth. All of our activities are geared towards embodying more and more customers, giving a very low level of penetration in our countries. This is not different in Nigeria as well. The second thing we do is to put a lot of the position out there that will drive usage. We continue to expand our 4G infrastructure. We continue to expand our normal 2G coverage. Those are the things we do to drive the usage. We continue to expand our distribution infrastructure. Of course, if pricing comes, it's a sweetener. But we continue to engage the regulator on appropriate pricing, given the level of inflation in Nigeria. Is it a must-have? No. Is it a nice-to-have? Yes. And we're going to continue to work with the regulatory disciplines So once again, if you look at our performance in Nigeria, we've grown about 25% in the last quarter. 49% is about 22%, 23% for the nine months up to December. It shows that our service is working, which is basically leveraging customer addition, leveraging usage to drive revenue acquisition. That's a lot more sustainable than price inflation. And... was the third question we want to come in and talk about uh our liquidity management before i now come back on the issue of nigeria which this is i'm not an economist but uh we just have too many issues we dealing with in nigeria we're dealing with inflation we're dealing with evaluation we're dealing with a different outlook for gdp growth in the country there's a multiple challenges facing the point at the same time but i believe that uh the governor government looking at all these issues as well. We will continue to drive our business in a way that is delivering value to customers and to shareholders. We're not going to shy away from investing in the largest country in Africa in terms of population to 20 million people. The demographics are quite good, many young people, still relatively low stream card penetration. So that's part of those challenges around inflation, challenges around devaluation, challenges around low GDP growth. I still firmly believe that Nigeria is still a very attractive market to be in long-term. Short-term, there will be temporary challenges. For long-term, we don't have any doubt that we're going to remain a big player in Nigeria for a very, very long time. Johnny, you want to just talk about liquidity management in terms of commercial water, the gentleman. Yeah.

Thanks, Shogun. So to answer your first question, We would not require any refinancing for paying the Holco debt, that bond, because as Shakun mentioned, and you have seen in our financials, that we have 560 million and we continue to upstream even in this subsequent period, that was on 31st December. So we have sufficient cash to take care of the bond repayment, number one. Number two, we have been able to upstream almost 530 plus million dollars during the last nine months, not only from Nigeria, of course, Nigeria volume has come down because of the scarcity, but across various geography. We are blessed to have 14 countries or diverse geographies from where we can continue to upstream money and that's what we continue to do. From Nigeria specifically, we have been able to upstream almost about a slightly short of $100 billion. And this time we have utilized this $100 billion to pay off our vendor, to reduce our dollar debt. And so we have been using that cash to reduce our dollar liabilities in the balance sheet. And overall, I can tell you that we have taken a program for de-dollarization of the debt. for last about a year or so. And consistently, we have been able to reduce the dollar exposure in many countries. Currently, if you look at other than the whole core $550 million, which will be paid off in May, Other than that, whatever debt you are seeing at Opco level, roughly about 79% of that is in local currency. We have been able to de-dollarize it from a lower than 50% level now to about almost touching 80% level. Of course, that's why you have seen the interest cost has gone up a bit. But then the risk of devaluation, et cetera, for managing the opco-level debt has gone away. So now the earning is in local currency. Debt is in local currency. There is no mismatch anymore except that 20%. And out of that 20%, a large part is actually sitting in Nigeria, which we had to take, as we mentioned in the past, that we have to take that debt to survive the situation which we are going through for the last couple of years. And now we started repaying those debt. So broadly, that's the way. And we continue to do the upstreaming. And that's one of the reasons you have seen that board has approved the buyback of shares up to $100 billion. Since we have that confidence, so we continue to do the upstream from all countries, wherever possible, we'll continue to do that.

Thank you, Yadiv.

Thank you. The next question is from Faisal Oame of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, and thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. Just starting off with your comment on margins. Obviously, you've been effectively working on enhancing margins and partly to offset the current currency environment. as we think about the room that remains in terms of how much more you can do on the margins front, how should we think about next year and the year after? Do you feel that you've maxed out what you can do or there's more potential? And that is obviously excluding any pricing impact. So that's my first question. And then my second question just relates to 5G. Maybe if you can just give us a bit of an update. We know that you've mentioned in the past that it's still kind of a small part of what the countries have in mind. Has that changed at all? Thank you.

Thank you. Let me start with the margin, because you know, as a policy, we don't give guidance on future EBITDA, but we've got a very clear strategy around the margins, and that is for every one dollar that we add to the top line, at least minimum 50 cents should go towards the bottom line. We've made that requirement quarter after quarter. And how do we do this? By just having a very strong focus on the opus control, by looking at all of our processes and redesigning those processes to ensure that this flow is maintained. The other thing we do is to continue to grow the top line anyway. Quarter after quarter, we respond, I mean, top line by very high double digit. That is supported our drive to increasing EBITDA. I must confess, I mean, the last couple of quarters, we've seen major headwinds coming from FWEL in a number of countries, Nigeria specifically, a few countries in East Africa. We also continue to see the impact of devaluation affecting operating margin. But despite this, we... maintain and expand EBITDA slightly in this quarter. Going forward, I would talk about maintaining EBITDA. I'm talking about resilient EBITDA and the opportunity for further expansion I'm not able to talk about it for now. All I can say is we would continue to maintain it at current levels. As I speak now, we're probably one of the most profitable tobacco in Africa at 49.4%. And one of the things we continue to work on, one, with our tobacco partners, we're looking for ways of converting one of our cost drivers, which is diesel. We're looking at installing more solar panels, more lithium batteries, more grid connection. We're looking at converting some of our recharges from physical recharges into digital recharges through banks, through our mobile money. We're reworking our transmission infrastructure to reroute some transmission parts to more efficient parts. All these support teams continue to evolve and we continue to exploit them. are very conscious of the ongoing challenges around the zoo, ongoing challenges around devaluation. But we will definitely do whatever it takes to maintain our current margins. Your second question around 5G. We bought a spectrum couple of years ago. We spent $280 million roughly to buy 5G spectrum in Nigeria. And across many countries, we do have a spectrum. We have launched 5G in Nigeria. We've launched 5G in Zambia. We've launched 5G in Kenya. We've launched 5G in Tanzania. These are very early days. These are very early days. And one clear opportunity for 5G is in home broadband. You know, the fiber in Africa is very little, and one clear pillar for driving penetration of home broadband is using wireless, and that's one clear use case for 5G. In terms of mobility, I still believe that the opportunities for rapid expansion of 5G mobility is still limited in the short term. Medium-long term, yes, we're going to see expansion of devices. Devices are still very expensive in Africa, and devices drive you When you don't have affordable devices, it's going to be difficult for people to really consume 5G. But we are going to pursue 5G as a driver of home broadband by having Raptors and Mi5s that are able to consume 5G for fixed broadband usage. So that's where we are. We've deployed a number of sites in four countries, most of them in Nigeria, some in Zambia, some in Tanzania. We've seen some decent level of usage. But the clear use case for now will be on home broadband. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Jonathan Kennedy Good of Brescian Securities. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions. May I ask what percentage of your Nigerian OPEX is dollar based? And then furthermore, In terms of the derivatives that you have to hedge your exposure in Nigeria, what proportion of those derivatives hedge OPEX versus balance sheet items? And then finally, just on your cash flow statement, I saw that there was a massive investment called investment with banks of $850 million. Is that related to margin for these derivatives, or is it another item? Thank you.

Let me take the OPEX first, and Jade would come in on the derivatives and the cash flow. question in terms of opens like you've done in many other of course we've moved away from a foreign currency operating expense to many local currency and in nigeria the percentage of our expenses that are denominated in foreign currencies about seven percent or less we've done this over the last couple of years so to a large extent our operating expenses are more or less removed from fx production given that we've got less than seven percent of our best been denominated in foreign currency In terms of the derivatives, Jari, do you want to comment on this?

Yeah, so we have a standard hedging policy which we apply, and that is applicable for both OPEX and CAPEX, though not necessarily that's the, you know, these derivatives are sometimes deliverable, delivered, not delivered. But we do take the hedging in terms of both OPEX and CAPEX, if it is dollar denominated, and that we consistently apply. In terms of your second question on the cash flow, that 840 million what you are referring to is the trust balance. It's a trust account balance. This is the customer's money. which is kept in the trust account for Airtel money. So it's not, that's why it is a restricted cash, not available for us, but it is part of the cashflow as per the standard that we need to disclose as a part of the cashflow standard, the cashflow document, but that's relating to the Airtel money trust account.

Thank you. And I presume that, Yeah, okay, so there was a significant inflow of mobile money deposits, I would assume, and which markets were driving that?

Sorry, mobile money what?

I presume there was a significant inflow of mobile money deposits then, or am I incorrect?

Almost all the markets of mobile money, you can see the transaction volume growth which has been reported. So there's a significant jump in the transaction volume over the last one year. And that transaction volume is an indicative factor that how much additional cash is coming in the trust account. So both are linked.

Right. Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

Thank you very much. The next question is Madvinder Singh from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. A couple of questions from my side and one clarification also. So the first question is on your revenue growth profile. So another quarter where voice growth has really surprised positively while data growth kind of remains in the similar territory. So if you could explain, you know, what is driving this resurgence in voice growth? Is there any specific commercial offers, campaigns, which you are running on the voice side? Are you setting up more towers? You know, are you expanding your coverage? So just want to understand this, you know, voice growth. Second question is around your Capex plan. I understand it is a bit too early, but given how, Naira rate is evolving. If you could talk, you know, whether you would take the new Naira rates into account for your future Capex plans. I mean, are you going to be focusing on the Capex to sales ratios, maintaining that at certain levels? If you could talk about that, that would be great. And finally, if you could just talk about, you know, what's going on in the SX market in Nigeria right now and whether you have done participated in any FX transactions recently, like any streams recently at the new rates, which are, you know, flagging in the market right now, like 1400 and so on. And, you know, what would be your rate of, is that the rate you will be translating the earnings for the period going forward? If this rate stays around this level, is that the relevant rate, you know, we are looking at? Thank you.

But let me start with the question on voice. In my opening remarks, I didn't mention the very low unique since that penetration in Africa in most of our territory is still very low. And if you combine it with the low levels of voice consumption, let me give you some figures. On the average, the voice consumption is about 290 minutes per month for every person. They stop for like 290 minutes in footprint in Africa. In India, comparatively, it's about 600 minutes, more than twice. That shows the opportunity available for a lot more people to talk a lot more in Africa. So if you combine these two metrics, the very low level of unique SIM card penetration, the very low level of voice minutes consumption, that is why we continue to grow voice quarter after quarter. And on top of this, we continue to expand our distribution infrastructure, our reaching to rural areas, our more efficient distribution in urban areas to really drive penetration of our SIM cards, availability of recharges through digital means, through mobile money. These are clear drivers that bring a lot more people to the franchise. And that's why we're still going to continue to see increasing voice revenue quarter after quarter, year after year, in our footprint, I mean, in Africa. And we very clearly should be capturing this growth by continuing to invest in capacity in our territories. On the other way, we roll out almost 3,000 sites every year to drive any additional coverage in many parts of our footprint. Nigeria, which is one of the largest markets in Africa, we've done only 82% coverage. That should be the opportunity available to bring a lot more people into the digital world if we expand our coverage. And the first thing we should talk on the phone So we're very bullish about capturing this boat. We're going to continue to invest in our territories. We're going to continue to invest in Nigeria despite the effects and challenges. And Jade will give you more color on the K-PERS plan. Our K-PERS intensity will remain around 14 to 15%. That's what we've done. We've given guidance of between $800 and $825 million for this year. We say we need that guidance. We're not in a position to share what the future K-PERS plan would be. Therefore, now we see very clear that this year we're between $800 and $825 million K-PERS for the full year. For the FX market in Nigeria, it's a difficult thing, I mean, to predict or to really, I mean, it's constantly evolving. Last week was a different, I mean, market. Two days ago was something different. Yesterday was something different as well. So you really need a crystal ball to be able to predict, I mean, what FX would be and the direction it's going to take. One thing I can say, we comply with all regulations. We don't go ahead of any regulations. And we just run our business within the rules of the game. Yeah, it's been slightly more difficult assessing for the next journey, despite the price in the country. We continue to work with our banks. We continue to look for ways of assessing the effects required And one thing we've said is like this, illiquidity will not affect our investment appetite for Nigeria. We're still going to find ways of importing the right equipment to expand the network to offer Nigeria's opportunity to be part of the digital world. Is there anything you want to add on the KPEX piece?

No, I don't have to add anything on the CAPEX side. The only thing is that we will probably be able to give a guidance as we complete the full year and go for the full year announcement. At that time, we will give the guidance for the next year for CapEx. On the last question of Forex... and translating rate, etc. We always use the Nafix rate as our translation rate. So it's like a daily restatement of the book based on the applicable rate of that day. So as we progress to quarter four, and if this rate, what is there 1400 plus, which is there in the Nafix window, if that is still continuing at that rate so every day it gets restated at that particular rate if it changes then we'll apply that changes for those days so uh for us every all our business cases, all our books, everything is getting, you know, getting recalculated based on the applicable rate all the time. So I hope that answers your question.

Yes, it does. Thank you very much.

Thank you. The next question is from Aluwasian Arambara of FBN Quest. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. Some of my questions have been asked partly, but the first one still on your delivering strategy. I know you said earlier that you're not looking at a situation where you refinance. So I guess that means you're paying down the U.S. debt outrightly. But I'm also thinking, given your plans for over the next 12 months, Over the next 12 months, we intend to do a share buyback.

Sorry, we could not hear the question.

I think we lost it. Yes, maybe we can move on to the next speaker and we can get back to this one when he gets back online. Hello, can you hear me?

Oh, now, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, sorry. Sorry, you lost me. So, I was speaking about your deleveraging strategy. I know you said earlier that you're not looking at a situation where you refinance, that you'll be paying down your old co-US debt outrightly. But considering the plans that you have for the next 12 months, thereabouts, you plan on doing a share buyback, and I know you're also ever committed to investing in your network infrastructure and investments generally.

So I'm just concerned about how... I guess, I mean, I'll probably answer if you can hear me. If you can see, I mean, from the results we've announced today and from the ones we've announced in the past, we had a very strong ability to generate cash and upstream the cash to the old coal. Jared just mentioned $530 million last week was streamed in the nine months and the December. So ability to generate and to upstream cash is not significantly impacted by what is happening in Nigeria. That's number one. Number two, over the last, I mean, number of quarters too, we've improved our leverage to 1.3x from almost, I mean, two point something, two years ago. That's a significant improvement. So I really don't see any major headway to pay down the debt, which we have the cash to pay almost now, and also returning some money to shareholders in the form of this share buyback. At the same time, we still reiterate our dividend policy that we described many times, that we continue to grow dividend, single to, single digit, mid to high single digit. Those are the things we're going to continue to do without any significant impact on our borrowing capacity. Operator, can we get the next question, please?

Of course. Thank you very much. The next question is from César Thuron of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good afternoon. Thanks for the call and the opportunity to ask questions if they've been asked already. I have two questions. Can you please talk about your efforts to get those price increases and where do you stand with your discussions with the regulator? And then can you please clarify the exact cash impact of the derivative losses which we've recorded in the P&L? Thank you so much.

On the derivative issue, Jared is going to speak to it. For the pricing, like I said earlier, we need to engage with the regulator about what price to take, where to take it, price and data. But it's not really... an imperative for us you've seen in our nigerian results as well we've grown voice revenue with good data revenue we've done this basically by driving two things customer numbers and consumption letting them consume more megabytes consume more minutes and hopefully we let them use a mobile wallet for financial activities. That's what is completely within our control. As of certain, I will continue to engage the regulator for appropriate pricing, given the level of inflation, given the valuation in the country. don't know when this would fully resolve. Therefore, now we continue to run the business by just driving consumption, by onboarding more customers, by expanding the network, by making sure we have the right distribution infrastructure to onboard customers more efficiently. Those are the things that are completely within our control. But as I said, right now, we're still talking to the regulator for the right pricing in Nigeria.

On the second question, on the cash impact on derivative loss. So firstly, let's understand how we do it. So derivatives instrument, outstanding derivative instruments are always mark to market. So every month, every quarter, we restate that liability based on the mark to market. But that's not a cash loss. That's a provision which we create in the books. Now, at the time of unwinding of those derivative instrument, whatever is the applicable rate at which it will be unwinded, that will be the actual difference between the derivative booking and the loss. So if I have restated the derivative, let's hypothetically say at, let's say up to this, originally it was booked and now it has come down by, let's say it has dropped by 400 Naira or 500 Naira, that then will be the cash impact when we unwind the derivative instrument on the new debt. And that is the real cash impact. But not necessarily that whatever we are providing, that will be the cash impact because it can improve also in the subsequent month. So it is not settled every month or daily or quarterly basis.

Thank you very much. Our last question is from Leneit Murungi of APSA Bank Kenya. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thanks for taking my question and for the call. I'd appreciate a bit more color on CAPEX. So the CAPEX spend as at Q3 was about 60, 63% of the targeted. Could you please share why CAPEX spend is sort of trailing behind? And is there a catalyst that would influence the aggressive in Q4? And for sharing the targeted capex sales ratio at the group level, but could you please give us a breakdown per region? Yeah, thank you.

Gary, you want to answer this?

Yeah, the first question was capex spend is high in Q3, Q4. See, that's a Historically also, if you look around, Q3, Q4 will be the higher one because of the ordering cycle, then receipt of material, and it's a long gestation period we have between displacing the order and getting the material and getting it deployed. Because keep in mind that some of our countries are landlocked and you have to take through a road infrastructure, some of the material passing to three countries and then reach at the destination. So it takes longer period of time for the delivery and installation of the equipments. So generally, you will see quarter three and quarter four will be always capex-wise on a higher side and quarter one and two will be relatively lower. Number one. Number two, your second question was region-wise capex. Is that, is it? Yes, please. Yes, Gary. Okay. So region-wise capex, we have already given in our trading update. If you see the Nigeria capex for nine months, we have spent $178 million. East Africa, we spent almost same amount, $177 million. And for Franco Africa, we spent about $109 million. That's total of $464 million, which we spent on the mobile service. And mobile money capex is about $17 million. That is primarily spent on the platform infrastructure and so on and so forth, and cybersecurity and related items.

Thank you. Just to confirm, should we expect the allocation per region of perhaps the capex to sales ratio to change, especially in light of the FX headwinds that are being experienced in particular markets?

See, our capex spend is not based on really a percentage of that region or that. It is all based on, you know, we spend capex based on our revenue growth projection and the potential where we have. So that's the way we allocate capex to each of the country and each of the region. So it's very difficult for me to say what will be the, you know, the share of allocation or if there is any change. So if a country has the potential to grow revenue, we'll put capex there. And There actually, we generally do not consider the devaluation of forex sensitivity because, and that's the reason Shagun has already mentioned that in Nigeria, in spite of such a sharp devaluation, we continue to hold our investment and continue to invest in Nigeria. Because don't forget that Nigeria in a constant currency is growing at 24%. Quarter three growth was 24%, which is a very, very good growth. Same is for some of the other countries. So CapEx is allocated based on where we have the opportunity, where we have need, and where we need to build our infrastructure and network for future.

And also just to be very clear, devaluation is not a permanent feature of any of our countries. It happens over one or two years and the currency stabilizes. But you need to invest them at the right time, otherwise it's going to be cut far behind. So if you own investment because you are waiting for currency to recover, you're going to be far, far behind the curve. That is where we don't want to be. So we know that these are very tough times in Nigeria, tough times in Malawi, a few other countries. But our philosophy remains unchanged. We're investing behind growth. The growth will return. And if we average some of these changes we're talking about our five-year, which is why I gave you the five-year CAGR. The five-year CAGR for revenue growth is... more or less 10%. The five-year KGA for EBITDA is also about 10%. So if you remove all those highs and lows, for the straight-line curve, we're still doing well in most of the countries, despite one of the valuations that really create a busyness in the investment profile of some companies.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that is all that we have time for questions, and I would like to hand back to Shrigan for some closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank all of you for joining us today's call. I look forward to speaking to all of you again, hopefully towards sometime May, June, when we discuss our full year results with all of you. Thank you. Have a good day.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's event, and you may now disconnect your lines.