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Key highlights (FY 2020)

Financial highlights

  • Full year Group revenue increased by 7% year-on-year to US$414.0m (2019: US$387.8m), driven by the continued growth in the number of sites and tenancies across the Group.
    • Q4 2020 Group revenue increased by 2% quarter-on-quarter to US$106.1m (Q3 2020: US$103.6m).
  • Full year Adjusted EBITDA increased by 10% year-on-year to US$226.6m (2019: US$205.2m), driven by tenancy growth and continued improvements in operational efficiency, with Adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 55% (2019: 53%), up 2ppts.
    • Q4 2020 Adjusted EBITDA increased by 5% quarter-on-quarter to US$60.1m (Q3 2020: US$57.4m).
  • Full year operating profit increased by US$60.8m year-on-year to US$56.3m (2019: US$-4.5m).
    • Q4 2020 operating profit decreased by US$5.2m quarter-on-quarter to US$10.9m (Q3 2020: US$16.1m), driven by a loss on disposal of PPE related to our site consolidation program.
  • Portfolio free cash flow increased by 3% year-on-year to US$174.4m (2019: US$168.9m).
    • Q4 2020 portfolio free cash flow decreased by -7% quarter-on-quarter to US$41.4m (Q3 2020: US$44.2m) re-flecting timing of capex and corporate income tax payments.
  • Net leverage of 2.9x remained flat year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter (2019 and Q3 2020: 2.9x), below the Group’s target range of 3.5x – 4.5x.
  • Business underpinned by long term contracted revenues of US$2.8bn, of which 82% is from Africa’s Big-Five MNOs, with an average remaining life of 6.8 years.

  • Read the FY 2020 results in full here

Operational highlights

  • Helios Towers continues to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on its operations. The telecommunications sector has been classified as an ‘essential service’ in our markets, allowing us to operate at our normal high levels of service. To date, there has been minimal impact on the Group’s delivery of service and operational execution.
  • Operational performance continues at very high levels, with power uptime of 99.99% recorded in Q4 2020 for a third consecutive quarter.
  • Tenancies increased by 1,065 tenants year-on-year to 15,656 tenants (2019: 14,591 tenants). Q4 2020 tenancies in-creased by 574 quarter-on-quarter (Q3 2020: 15,082).
  • Sites increased by 382 sites year-on-year to 7,356 sites (2019: 6,974 sites). Increase of 134 sites quarter-on-quarter (Q3 2020: 7,222).
  • Tenancy ratio of 2.13x increased by 0.04x quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year (2019 and Q3 2020: 2.09x).

Read the FY 2020 results in full here