African tower management company Eaton Towers today announced a deal with Telkom Kenya, covering its existing portfolio of over 1 000 towers.
The 15-year management and leasing deal is focused on both the maintenance of existing sites and building new sites, and extends Eaton Towers' partnership with the Orange Group, following the 2012 deal with Orange Uganda.
At the same time, Eaton Towers has announced the completion of its third round of equity financing, provided by majority shareholder Capital International Private Equity Fund and its co-investment limited partners.
Integrated telecommunications services provider Telkom Kenya operates Orange's mobile and fixed-line telecommunications services in Kenya.
Eaton Towers says Telkom Kenya will retain ownership of its existing portfolio, while Eaton Towers will invest in passive infrastructure upgrades and build new towers to provide Telkom Kenya with improved coverage and network quality.
"In parallel, the partnership will create a solid platform that will allow Telkom Kenya to focus on developing value-added services such as innovative data offers as well as an enhanced customer care experience."
Eaton Towers CEO Alan Harper says the company has raised $195 million (about R1.95 billion) in new equity from shareholders for investment in Africa. "The first deployment of this will be invested in upgrading Telkom Kenya's towers and building out new network coverage."
Mickael Ghossein, CEO of Telkom Kenya, says the agreement will enable the operator to reduce its operational costs. "At the same time [it will] minimise the environmental impact of our network by reducing the use of diesel fuel."
For Orange, the partnership represents an important step forward in the group's overall efforts to improve efficiency and control operating costs across its footprint in Africa. Sharing passive infrastructure is a key part of this strategy and similar deals have already been struck in Uganda, Cameroon and C^ote d'Ivoire.
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