For Eaton Towers, the acquisition is reportedly a major step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.
Alan Harper, CEO of Eaton Towers, said: "This is a transformational deal which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as its key partner in these six countries."
Eaton Towers currently owns and operates towers in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa; this expands coverage in Africa to seven countries with over 5000 towers.
The agreements will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.
The agreements are subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries.
