Eaton Towers buys Uganda towers

Published Mar 19, 2012

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Eaton Towers, the leading African tower company, on Monday announced a further major investment in Uganda, with the acquisition of 400 towers from Warid Telecom Uganda.

Eaton will own and maintain the towers while Warid and other mobile operators will be long term tenants on the towers.

This latest acquisition gives Eaton 700 towers in Uganda, with national coverage, following the recent acquisition of 300 towers from Orange Uganda.

Eaton Towers CEO Alan Harper said that they now had a leading position in Uganda, combining the two complementary networks of Orange and Warid, which cover the majority of the population.

“Building on Eaton's successful operation in Ghana, where our customers include MTN and Airtel, Eaton will offer the best service to the telecoms sector in Uganda so that quality can be improved and coverage can be extended in a cost effective way,” Harper said.

“Tower sharing is now becoming an essential strategy for African mobile operators with a need to reduce operating costs, reduce capex and offer focus on their core business of providing service for their customers. Eaton will continue to implement our strategy of investing in attractive tower sharing opportunities across Africa.”

Eaton Towers received $150 million equity investment from Capital International Private Equity Funds (CIPEF), a private equity investor that focuses on emerging markets, in September 2011 and subsequently raised debt financing in Ghana.

These funds will support the group's ambitions to extend its operations across other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. - I-Net Bridge

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