TMT (telecom, media and technology) infrastructure mergers, acquisitions and fundraising in Africa is predicted to continue growing in 2019.
Investment news provider TMT Finance predicts that transactions for the year will exceed $10-billion, due to increasing dealflow across the region and appetite from global industry and investors.
Last week it wss reported that South African data centre firm Teraco Data Environments was sold for $1-billion sale to US private equity firm Berkshire Partners.
Teraco was reported to be valued at 22 times its 2018 EBITDA of $40-million to $45-million, reflecting outstanding growth expectations comparable with European and US data centre businesses.
TMT Finance has said that it expects 2019 to be a record year for investment and M&A deals in TMT infrastructure in Africa with many large deals planned, particularly by telecom infrastructure providers looking to make public flotations to tap into public investment fund appetite and fuel further growth plans.
These include leading regional African digital and mobile telecom infrastructure operators Liquid Telecom, IHS Towers, Eaton Towers and Helios Towers Africa, all of which have been hiring investment banks to arrange for IPOs and are expected to float or consolidate their sector in the next 12 months.
National operators including Towerco of Madagascar and Wananchi of Kenya have also recently hired investment banks for sales, while large regional subsea cable business such as Seacom of South Africa and MainOne of Nigeria are also thought to be weighing up sale and investment options.