Eaton Towers’ $30m African expansion
Eaton Towers, an African tower ownership and management company, has secured a $30m debt facility from Standard Bank Group, acting through Stanbic Bank Ghana and the Standard Bank of South Africa, to build and develop both existing and new telecom towers across Ghana.
This is Eaton’s first bank debt financing and follows the $150m equity investment into Eaton Towers last September by Capital International Private Equity Funds (CIPEF), a private equity investor that focuses on emerging markets.
Peter Lewis, Eaton Towers CFO, considers the debt facility an endorsement of the company’s business model.
The debt facility and equity investment will enable Eaton Towers to add scale to its business of selling telecom tower co-location and shared-infrastructure facilities to mobile operators.
Specifically, the debt facility will fund operational maintenance of existing towers that Eaton manages for Vodafone Ghana and the construction of new towers in Ghana. Eaton Towers has drawn down $10 million of the facility so far.
In October 2010, Eaton Towers signed a 10-year contract to take over the operations and co-location management of 750 telecom towers for Vodafone Ghana and the company plans to extend its operations across other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
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