MTN’s IHS Towers Approval Puts Nigeria’s Telecom Infrastructure In Focus

MTN’s plan to take greater control of IHS Towers has cleared a major Nigerian regulatory hurdle, but the approval comes with a condition that says a lot about how important telecom infrastructure has become.

In its H1 2026 results filing, MTN said Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has given conditional approval for the IHS transaction. The condition requires MTN to sell down up to 30 percent of the Nigerian component of the IHS business at market prices over time.

The wider deal would see MTN acquire the roughly 75 percent of IHS Holding it does not already own. IHS Towers announced the proposed sale earlier this year in a transaction valuing the tower company at about $6.2 billion enterprise value, with IHS shareholders due to receive $8.50 per share in cash.

The Nigerian condition is not surprising. Towers are not ordinary assets. They are the physical layer that mobile operators need for coverage, capacity, 4G, 5G, fixed wireless and future broadband services. If a dominant operator gains too much control over infrastructure used by rivals, regulators have reason to look closely.

The sell-down condition tries to balance two goals. It allows MTN to keep moving toward infrastructure consolidation while giving Nigerian investors a stake in a critical national telecom asset. It also reduces the risk that competitors become too dependent on infrastructure controlled by one large operator.

MTN says it is comfortable with the condition and expects the transaction to close in the second half of 2026, subject to remaining approvals. The company also says the deal should be accretive to revenue, EBITDA and adjusted headline earnings per share, even as net debt-to-EBITDA excluding leases rises from 0.3 times to 0.8 times.

For MTN, the strategic logic is clear. Owning more of the tower layer can give it better control over network costs, rollout timing and infrastructure planning. That matters as African operators push deeper into data, fintech, home broadband and enterprise connectivity.

For Nigeria, the deal is about more than one company. The country needs reliable tower, fibre, power and backhaul infrastructure to support digital services at scale. We have seen the same theme in MTN’s broader broadband push in Nigeria and Ghana, where fixed wireless and fibre are becoming central to growth.

The risk is that infrastructure consolidation can reduce competition if safeguards are weak. Regulators will need to ensure fair access, transparent pricing and operational separation where necessary, especially if rival operators depend on the same towers.

This is why the approval is important. It is not just a transaction update. It is a sign that African telecom infrastructure is becoming too valuable to leave entirely to private dealmaking without competition and national-interest conditions attached.