IHS Holding Limited Ordinary Shares

Good day and welcome to the IHS Holdings Limited earnings results call for the three-month period ending March 31st, 2023. Please note that today's conference is being webcast and recorded. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad at any time. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Colby Sinusail. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Thanks also to everyone for joining the call today. I'm Colby Sinasel, the EVP of Communications here at IHS. With me today are Sam Darwish, our Chairman and CEO, and Steve Howden, our CFO. This morning, we published our unaudited financial statements for the three-month period and in March 31st, 2023, 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's which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IHS, which comprises the entirety of the group's operations. Before we discuss the results, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer set out at the beginning of the presentation on slide two, which should be read in full along with the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements set out in our earnings release and 6K 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 our Form 20F, followed 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 first quarter 2023 earnings results call. We had another strong quarter with growth primarily driven by a sequential step-up from new lease amendments, escalators, and Forex resets, while growth from power moderated, all as expected. Results also included a $48 million one-time benefit to revenue and adjusted EBITDA from our smallest key customer in Nigeria, inclusive of $5 million additional withholding tax gross-up and a $43 million one-time benefit to RLFCF. Lastly, Q1 results included a $9 million Forex tailwind versus rates previously assumed in guidance. All positive. We are reiterating our 2023 guidance for all our key metrics, including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, RLFCF, and CAPEX that we issued in March. We recognize the modest upside from the $5 million withholding tax benefit in Q1 and that our updated Forex rates now assumed in guidance imply $14 million upside versus rates previously assumed in guidance. However, given Forex rates in emerging markets can be volatile and that a notable risk of Naira devaluation this year exists, we think it's important we remain prudent in our approach and not increase our guidance. Overall, we remain on track to achieve our goals for 2023. Skipping to slide seven, I want to discuss some of our key highlights for the quarter. Starting with Nigeria, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expected to be sworn in as Nigeria's next president on May 29th. We wish Mr. Tinubu much success and continue to be cautiously optimistic about the economic issues he has said he intends to address. More specific to IHS, we completed the upstreaming that began last quarter and resulted in an incremental $15 million upstream in Q1. We're also pleased to announce today that subsequent to quarter end, we have upstreamed an additional $50 million. Lastly, on Nigeria, during Q1, we elected to rationalize 727 towers occupied by our smallest key customer, where we were not recognizing revenue, but were incurring costs. This was as expected and will help drive cost savings, a positive development. In South Africa, Our acquisition of nearly 6,000 towers from MTN a year ago immediately made us the largest independent tower operator in the country. As we stated last quarter, and given various dynamics in the market, including an unprecedented level of load shedding that has occurred in the country post-deal close, we continue to evaluate our power services opportunities and will update you as appropriate and if necessary. Moving on, the Block B shares, which equate to just over 60 million shares, became available to trade without the registered offering requirement on April 14th, and another 120 million plus shares will become available in October 2023, including Blocks C and D. After taking initial steps in 2022 to help improve stock liquidity, including waiving the registered offering requirement last May, we believe the releases of Block B, C and D this year may further help our trading volumes and we continue to evaluate options that we believe will enhance the value of the company. At the same time, we continue to focus on delivering against our publicly stated fundamental objectives and building a track record with investors. Lastly, as previously disclosed, During Q1, we entered into a Naira-denominated term loan, an RFCF, as we look to increase the percent of our debt held in local currency, or more specifically, the Naira, in anticipation of a potential Naira devaluation. Overall, we continue to take a disciplined approach to capital deployment, recognizing the importance of maintaining a strong balance sheet. This includes net leverage of 3.1%. at the low end of our 3-4 target and no meaningful maturities due until Q4-25. While we continue to optimize our balance sheet, we are generally happy with where we are. Quickly, you'll see on slide 8 that we expect to publish our 2022 sustainability report later this quarter, which will be our fifth year of doing so. The 2022 sustainability report will be our first year reporting under the GRI framework, demonstrating our continued evolution in sustainability reporting at IHS. And with that, I will turn the call over to Steve.