More than US$10bn deals predicted for African TMT sector in 2019

TMT Finance exclusively reported last week on the US$1bn sale of South African data centre firm Teraco Data Environments to the US private equity firm Berkshire Partners. Teraco was reported to be valued at 22 times its 2018 EBITDA of US$40-45mn, reflecting outstanding growth expectations comparable with European and US datacentre 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 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.

To address this, leading African telecom, media and technology companies, investment banks and investors are meeting to assess the latest investment opportunities at the annual TMT Finance Africa in Cape Town 2019 conference on 28 March.

More than 60 major speakers have been announced for the event, which features CxOs and senior executives from Vodacom, MTN, Helios Towers Africa, CSquared, Dark Fibre Africa, Seacom, Angola Cables, Standard Bank, IFC World Bank, DLA Piper, Rand Merchant Bank, WIOCC, Paix Data Centres, BCX, European Investment Bank, Investec Asset Management, GreenWish Partners, Convergence Partners and others.

Some of the important sessions at the senior executive event include

· Telecom Leadership Africa

· Digital Infrastructure Africa

· Media

· Powering Mobile Tower

· Data Centre and Cloud

· Mergers and Acquisitions

· Investors

· Broadband

· Financing TMT

· Fintech and Mobile Money

· Smart City