Earnings Call: Q3 2020

Oct 29, 2020

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for making the time to join us to listen to our Q3 results call. I'm on Slide one of the deck. Joining me, as usual, is Tom Greenwood, our Chief Operating Officer and also Manjit Dillon, who's our interim chief finance officer. And, of course, I'm Kashmandir, the CEO. If I move to slide two, the agenda of the call is myself and Tom will give highlights of the business. Manjit will take us through some detailed financials. And at the end of the call, there'll be plenty of time for Q and A through our conference coordinator. So moving straight on to Slide four, highlights of our third quarter twenty twenty. We continue to have strong momentum and delivered strong revenue growth of 6% in the quarter, delivering $103,600,000 of revenue. And corresponding, we saw EBITDA expand higher than our revenue, as you'd expect for our business model, grew by some 9% adjusted EBITDA growth, delivering a $57,400,000 quarter three growth. But most importantly, and we're very pleased that we've now entered the 55% margin range and into our medium term target of 5560% EBITDA margin. So that's a first for us for our business. Driving cash flow, portfolio free cash flow was at $133,000,000 some 7% increase year over year, of course, reflected due to the higher EBITDAR and a little bit of higher maintenance CapEx. Looking at some of our other metrics. First of all, site count, we delivered a 5% increase in our site count, tower sites and locations, slightly higher than 7,200 locations across our countries. And tenancy growth grew by some six percentage points to a little over 15,000 overall tenancies for the group, delivering a tenancy ratio of 2.09. You would have seen also that we secured additional debt capacity by tapping our bond for another $225,000,000 with a yield to maturity of 5.6, which gives us a significantly more efficient financing structure compared to where we were before. And again, I remind you of the August announcement of our signing of a deal to enter Senegal with the acquisition of one hundred and sorry, twelve twenty towers. We expect to complete that transaction in 2021. And part of that transaction was also 400 build to suits over the coming years ahead of us. Moving on to Slide five, just focusing on three key metrics. I've already mentioned the tenancy ratio of 2.09 and delivering around 15,000 now tenancies overall for our group. We've added year to date to Q3, eight fifty six tenancies. Our last quarter annualized EBITDA is coming in at EUR $230,000,000, and the center KPI there shows a good trend in terms of growth year over year of our last quarter annualized EBITDA and again emphasizing expansion to 55% now into our range that we've been articulating for some time now. But most importantly, it continues the trend of quarter on quarter EBITDA expansion. This is now our twenty third quarter of consecutive EBITDA growth. And in terms of last quarter portfolio free cash flow growth, we've delivered $177,000,000 increasing of around 5% on full year 2019, and we would expect this to continue the momentum we're seeing on this metric as well. I'm going to hand over to Tom now to talk a little bit more in detail about some of the other dynamics of our Thanks very much, Kash. Hi, everyone. It's Tom Greenwood, Chief Operating Officer. So looking at Slide six now, this is the COVID slide, which we've been presenting through the year, looking at the impacts on our business over the key parameters: workforce and operations, revenue, liquidity, customer rollout, supply chain and situation management. At a high level, the business very much continues operationally as normal with field operations continuing to be classed as essential services in our markets delivering normal power uptime as usual. As you can see from the middle column and the right hand column, there's minimal impact and and not too much change since q two. The two changes highlighted here are the liquidity has increased through our bond tap. We now sit with €466,000,000 of cash on balance sheet plus €290,000,000 of undrawn loans. And then on the tenancies, we have seen some slight slowdown in rollout from one or two of our customers in Q2 and Q3, and we're guiding for tenancies to be at around 1,000 net additions year over year by the end of FY twenty twenty. So within the previous guidance, albeit at the bottom of it, and I think we can say that we're getting a lot of tenancy orders in right now, and our sense is that without COVID, we would have ended the year at around 1,200 to 1,300 tenancies. But it seems like we're getting those in now, and we'll be having some of those come through in early next year. Supply chain and situation management, as you can see, unchanged and no impact there. Moving on to Page seven, the recent developments. Mentioned the bond path. So that was a successful issuance in September, further reducing our cost of debt and cost of capital. This was issued at 5.6% equivalent to 106.25 trading price. And of course, this 5.6% being lower than the 7% that we achieved in our large refinancing back in June. So good progression there on our cost of capital. The operational excellence, as I mentioned on the previous page, very much continues. Through this year, we've been having record levels of power uptime performance, maintaining in Q3 the 99.99% levels across all of our markets, which demonstrates excellent performance by our teams in the field. Senegal is progressing well. As a reminder, we signed that deal in August and communicated at the time we expect to close in Q1. We're very much on track with that, executing our one hundred day plan in the market with teams on the ground, setting up the office, the teams, the systems and going through the regulatory process. So very much expect to close that deal in Q1. And just on the subject of M and A, we are very busy still on a large pipeline of M and A, 10,000 plus towers that we're currently actively engaged in, processes one way or another, and some of those are in advanced stages. So we're extremely focused on getting a few more deals signed hopefully soon, and making those announcements. And, you know, this is very much in line with our five year strategy. As you'll remember, when we did the IPO, we communicated a five year strategy of moving from five markets to eight markets and 7,000 towers to 12,000 towers. With Senegal, we've moved to six markets and approaching 9,000 towers. And with the pipeline we have, we could see that progress much further on an accelerated basis, which would be great. So hopefully, more to announce on that in the not too distant future. Moving on now to Page eight, our sustainable business strategy, which is core to everything we do, and we've been communicating that with you through the year and since doing the IPO. We've been developing our strategy and core focus. We've developed our strategic KPIs and targets, and these are centered around three major pillars: business excellence and efficiency, network access and sustainable development, and empowered people and partnerships. And for those of you who've seen our sustainability section on our website, you may have seen a 16 page deck, which is screenshotted on the right hand side here, which I'd encourage people to have a look at if you haven't. Dates of your diary, the November 19. In a few weeks, we will be doing a sustainable business strategy presentation to investors. So I'd encourage everyone to sign up for that. If you're on the PDF of this presentation on our website, you can just click on that red box at the bottom of the page to register, and we'd love to see you all there and talk to you more about all of this. And then finally, in Q1 twenty twenty one, so in a few months' time, when we release our FY 2020 annual report, we'll also be releasing a sustainable business report alongside that, which we'll build on and provide a lot more detail on all of these factors in that. So look out for that alongside our annual report in Q1 next year. So with that, I'll hand over to Manjit to take you through the financials. Thanks, Tom. Moving on to the financial results and starting on Slide 10. Here, we summarize the main KPIs, which I'll be talking through over the next few slides. So moving swiftly on to Slide 11, and we see continued upward growth in our tenancies. Over the last twelve months, we've added eight fifty six tenancies across our portfolio and 176 additional tenancies quarter on quarter, which was predominantly driven by over 100 new sites in Tanzania, forty three and thirty three new tenancies in DRC and in South Africa respectively. As mentioned earlier, whilst there were some short term COVID-nineteen delays to customer rollout, our tenancy pipeline remains robust and our tenancy guidance remains within what we previously communicated during the course of the year. And we expect incremental tenancies for 2020 to be approximately 1,000 within our previous guidance of 1,000 to 1,500. On to Slide 12, looking at our revenues and EBITDA. We've seen solid growth in Q3 with revenue growth of 6% year on year and 1% quarter on quarter. Q3 twenty twenty EBITDA grew by 9% year on year and 4% quarter on quarter to $57,000,000 This now represents our twenty third consecutive quarter of EBITDA growth, a trend spanning all the way back to Q1 twenty fifteen. We're also very happy to announce our adjusted EBITDA margin has stepped up one percent point to 55% and within our medium term target range of 55% to 60%, which we also targeted for this year as well by end of this year. If we move on to Slide 13, you'll see the usual breakdowns provided, which are very consistent from previous quarterly updates. Our customer base, FX mix and operating company splits are largely unchanged, with 87% of our revenue year to date coming from Africa's big five mobile network operators being Airtel, MTN, Orange, TIGO and Vodacom. 60% of our revenue was in hard currency, being either U. S. Dollar or euro pegged, which translates to approximately 65% of our EBITDA being in hard currency. This provides a strong natural FX hedge for the business and which is further complemented by our annual inflation escalators, which we have in our contracts with our customers. As mentioned previously, this hard currency mix will actually increase further following the closure of Senegal, where we expect the revenue percentage to actually increase to 63% from 60% today. Moving on to Slide 14, which provides an update on our CapEx. Year to date, our expenditure has been €62,000,000 reflecting €49,000,000 of discretionary CapEx and €13,000,000 of nondiscretionary CapEx. For full year 2020, we have revised guidance downwards to 80,000,000 to €110,000,000 from the previous guidance of 110,000,000 to €140,000,000 This reduction of €30,000,000 is due to a reduction in growth CapEx and reflects our expectation of 1,000 incremental tenancies for 2020 at the lower end of our previously guided range. We continue to expect non discretionary CapEx to be circa 20,000,000 to $25,000,000 in 2020. Finally, moving on to Slide 15. Here, we show a summary of our financial debt. Following the successful refinancing in June, we went back to the debt markets in September, where we raised $225,000,000 through a bond up issuance, as mentioned earlier. This tap was priced at 186.25%, a yield to maturity of 5.6%. This further reducing our cost of debt, was at 9.125% at the start of the year prior to our refinancings. We have a strong balance sheet with our cash balance as of Q3 twenty twenty being $466,000,000 And when we combine that with our $200,000,000 term loan facility, which is currently undrawn, we have significant funds to execute on our expansionary growth strategy and capitalize on the opportunities, which Tom mentioned earlier. Finally, our net leverage is at 2.9% currently below our target range of 3.5 to 4.5%. When we pro form a in for the Senegal acquisition, we expect to be at roughly 3.5 again, at the low end of our target range and importantly, allowing for further debt utilization when required. And with that, I'll pass back over to Kash to go through the final slide. Thanks, Manjit. So I'm on Slide 16, and this is the last slide before we go to Q and A. So to summarize Q3 twenty twenty, look, we've maintained our track record of consistent EBITDA growth and profitable EBITDA margin of 55% in twenty three consecutive quarters of EBITDA growth. We've secured record low cost of debt and further strengthened our balance sheet in terms of capacity to do expansion by tapping our bond for further $225,000,000 As Manjit stated, our full year tenancy expectation is around 1,000 tenancies to be added during the course of 2020 and within our guidance range. And the medium term guidance is unchanged with strong demand for pipeline of organic growth as well as M and A expansion into new geographies. So on that point, I'm going to hand over to Adam to help us manage through the questions. Thanks, Adam. Thank you. Our first question today comes from Giles Thorne of Jefferies. Giles, please go ahead. Hi, good morning everyone. The line went a little bit fuzzy there. Hopefully, you can hear me. Yes, My first question is on Airtel Tanzania. Airtel Fainzty was the only one who didn't sell their towers in Tanzania, but they're now very, very actively talking about selling those 1,500 towers. I think that would take you, if you were to buy them, to 100% ownership of towers in the country. So my question is, is that an asset base you're interested in? Is it an asset base you could even buy? Any commentary there? Second was on Airtel Tigo in Ghana. There's news flow out over the past couple of days of a nationalization of that asset. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for nationalization in your countries of operation. So I was just curious on your high level commentary there. Is that an opportunity? Or is that a risk? Especially considering you were the big beneficiary of the merger of Airtel, Ansigo and Ghana. Is there any commentary there? And then finally, sticking with the theme of M and A, you very successfully lowered your cost of debt over the past twelve months. With that lower cost of capital, are you inclined to be more aggressive when bidding for assets, a bit of higher price because you've got a lower input cost? Or are you inclined to have larger spreads on the assets that you buy, if that makes sense? So how has your lower cost of capital changed your M and A approach? That's my question. Thank you. Hi, Giles. Thanks for the question. Let me take the first two Airtel related points, and then I'll ask Tom to comment on the M and A and the lower cost of capital impact in our M and A approach. So Tanzania Airtel, look, we're very well established in Tanzania, and we see continued organic growth. At this stage, our view of the Airtel towers in Tanzania is something that we'd sooner focus on other markets and expand into new geographies rather than spend our resources in further market share growth through acquisitions in Tanzania. And it's a good asset. I'm sure someone else will come in and we think that's a good sign and advocates Tanzania as a solid market for a second telco to operate in. Regarding Ghana, Airtel Ghana, Airtel Tiggo Ghana and the recent news I think came out yesterday from Airtel. We're watchful of the situation there. It's not an unknown secret that Airtel and Millicom are looking to or Airtel, Parqi Airtel are looking to get out of Ghana and Millicom out of Africa. I think the if the government do take that asset base on, then we feel very positive about the fact that the government will invest and and ultimately sell the business on to a third party. And there are other players outside of the Africa's big five MNOs being obviously Airtel, TIGO, Vodacom, MTN and Orange who are looking to expand and free being one of those assets or businesses, MNOs from Senegal that we've just acquired the towers from. So we're watchful of the situation in Ghana, but we're also positive that the government is looking at this business there. Tom, on the M and A front? Charles, yes, look, I mean, our cost of capital is something that we monitor, particularly when it's moving in the right way as quickly as as us is or has over the past few months. So, you know, that is a a good thing for us. You know, it makes us more competitive if we need to be. You know, I think the M and A that we're looking at, we always take it really on a case by case basis. So we, you know, we won't come out and say, you know, we're we're suddenly reducing our returns thresholds for for all deals. But I think, you know, to the extent we want to or need to on particular deals, it does give us, you know, simply a bit more flexibility, which is a good thing for expanding our business. So, you know, we'll we'll continue to monitor that. But, you know, the deals that we look at and are looking at, we always look for substantial surplus over and above our WACC whenever we underwrite anything. So that will continue. Just as a follow-up on that. This will be a big debating point, but it feels to me that the market's being pretty efficient when it's pricing your debt, but it's not being that efficient when it's pricing your equity. I don't know what your view on that is. I'm sure you would agree with me and more. But does that mispricing of your equity here, does that, you know, slow your hand or slow your appetite when it comes to do M and A? Do you fear raising equity here? Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. I mean, our sense is that the yes, I mean, well, guess we're obviously going to say this, the market is pricing equity too low. I think that we take a longer term view when we're thinking about acquisitions and comparing acquisitions to our current trading levels. I think there's maybe one or two technical elements to why the equity trading levels are where they are with the perceived overhang of some pre IPO shareholders. Whether that's true or not, I don't know if that perhaps that's having some kind of impact on the price. But we'll continue to do what's in our control and run a solid, efficient business and keep on doing the right thing, which is looking for new growth opportunities of good assets in exciting markets, we think will add value to our business. So we'll focus on that. And our view is the market will also figure itself out over time. Our next question comes from Florian Henrizzi of Bank of America. Florian, your line is now open. Yes, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I got three. So firstly, you already have talked about the Senegal deal in the presentation. Just wondering if you could give us a bit more color on how things have been going since you hit the ground. I mean, is it going as planned? Has there been any sort of negative or positive surprises? I mean, for example, is everything going smoothly with obtaining of the required permits and licenses? Just I mean, overall, the integration is going and how we are on track? That would be the first question. Yes, absolutely. I'll take this. It's Tom here. Yeah. Look, Senegal is going well, I would say. And, you know, having you know, this being our fixed market set up, we've got a great team on the ground, some of whom have been in the business for up to ten years. So I have experience setting up other markets, which is great. And we're executing on our one hundred day plan. We've found an office. We're getting some staff on board. We're having some staff transferred from the mobile operator, which is typical in these fields, and we're having good interaction with the regulators. So the process is very much on track. We expect a Q1 closing. If anything, it's possibly a little bit ahead, but I wouldn't change the expectation of closing time. I think Q1 is a reasonable time to assume still. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. And then secondly, I wanted to I was wondering how you generally see the South African market in terms of the M and opportunities? I think you've previously mentioned that sort of build to suit would be your focus here. But I mean South Africa is kind of a huge market in terms of towers. I was wondering if you just could give us some color around discussions with the operators there. So I think telecom, at some point, they were reported to look at a potential sale. And yes, really anything you could say around M and A in South Africa would be appreciated. Yes. No, absolutely. A big part of our strategy for entering South Africa was clearly to have optionality should some of the large portfolios come up for sale over time. South Africa is a market with 29,000 towers, and I think over 25,000 of them are still owned by mobile operators. So there's clearly big potential there should one or more of them decide to sell. And in the meantime, we're doing build to suit rollout, but a big part of it, as I said, is having optionality there being on the ground should one or more of these come through. I I don't think we can we we can't speak in specifics on this call about exactly who we're talking to or what might be going on. But, you know, I think there's suddenly rumors circulating that the market is as you've alluded to. And, you know, we we very much hope that our thesis that over time African mobile operators will fill their towers is hopefully, we're starting on that track at the moment. So let's see what happens. But yes, it would be big focus for us if that were to happen. Okay, sure. Okay. And then just my last question is just on your margin. So at around, I think, 55% now in Q3, it looks quite decent, and I think it's already in the range of your midterm target. Just wanted to understand if the Q3 was sort of helped by any kind of temporary or costs related to the lower commercial momentum on the back of COVID? Or if that development is really structural, we can expect this level of profitability to continue near term? Or let me say on an underlying basis, since I assume sort of your Senegal view will initially be EBIT dilutive? I'll Magnus, why don't you take that? Yes. Thanks, Brian. Yes, I think that where we are now is very much a structural piece. We see this as being part of our work that we've been doing over the past year to try and improve our margins. And that's really been driven by combination of increasing tenancies, but also operating efficiencies. I think as you rightly say though, as we look to the short to medium term, as we start to integrate new markets, specifically Senegal, given the low tenancy ratio they've come with on day one, it will certainly be somewhat margin dilutive. But as those assets start to lease up over time, we'll start to see the margin rebound and get back towards our medium term targets of 55% to 60%. But looking at our established markets, certainly, you'll start to see more and more improvements in our EBITDA margin over the medium term. Our next question comes from Simon Coles of Barclays. I guess it's just on the tenancy guidance. Could you give us maybe a little bit more indication of if that's specific in any markets that were causing the slight slowdown in rollout? And then how do we think about that in future? Is that just a pushback or is that a postponement so those could be additional tenancies next year? And then I'm just wondering, you say Senegal is all on track. Are you already having conversations with the other operators in the market about adding tenancies to the portfolio you're buying? Because we know that's got a low tenancy ratio, so there's a big opportunity to grow there. So any more color around those would be great. Thank you. Hey, Simon, it's Tom here. Yes, so in terms of the tenancy, I'd say rather than it being on a country by country basis, it's more on an operator by operator basis. And there are really two scenarios which have meant that some of the rollout is happening a little later in the year than what originally have been assumed. One is one or two supply chain delays here and there with the mobile operators. And the second one is the group corporate keeping the purse strings tight in terms of CapEx spending in Q2 and Q3, which now appears to have opened up in the recent weeks. And so therefore, we're getting orders in now for sites which have been in the pipeline since around the start of this year. And, you know, hence, there's a lead time on on on those particularly built suits, which will mean that they don't hit the December 31 cutoff date. So this is reporting, but more go into next year effectively. So, yeah, effectively, there's, you know, a little bit of a slowdown in q two and q three, because of the two main reasons I just stated, which now appears to be coming through now. So I guess the good news is the pipeline hasn't changed or gone away. It's just some are coming through a little later. On the on your next part of the question regarding the guidance for next year or the tenancies for next year, we'll be giving, in the normal way, full guidance when we report our full year numbers in Q1 next year. But I would say I wouldn't expect to sort of us to significantly increase guidance for next year. I I would imagine it will be in a similar vein as this year, you know, something like 2,500, for example, rather than saying, 1200 to 1700. So I think it will be just a slight shift to the right that we've put forward in Q1 for the guidance next year. And then the final strand of the question on Senegal. Yes, absolutely. I mean, very standard practice for us as soon as we have a deal in a new market, even actually before quite often we actually sign it, we will be engaging with the other mobile operators in the market. And Senegal is no different to that. So yes, absolutely, a big part of our one hundred day plan is the sales work stream, which is very much focused on doing that, talking to the other potential customers in the market or existing customers because they're already on some of the sites that we're buying. Our next question comes from Jonathan Kennedy Goode of JPMorgan. Jonathan, your line is now open. Hi, Kash, Tom. Thanks for the call and opportunity to ask questions. Quick one on Tanzania. It looks like some of the regulatory interventions made against mobile operators there is causing quite a bit of pressure on their revenue outlook and subscriber numbers. Just kind of wanted to get a sense of how this impact your pipeline there and whether there's already been a recovery or whether that's still pretty soft. And then also coming back to your lower debt costs, just wanted to try and unpack how you think about your debt headroom and how many towers that kind of could potentially result in allow you to purchase as you look at the deals before you? So just on those two questions, please. Jonathan, great to hear from you again. So and nice to see your report on us this morning. Yeah. So look. Tanzania regulatory sort of dynamics in with the MNOs there. This is something we've seen before actually in the back end, for example, in DRC back in 02/1718 time frame. You know, the rules are the rules as far as we're concerned, and there was an issue that not all SIM cards were registered. They've enacted that sort of regulation, and and the MNOs are adhering quickly to it. And from past experience reference to DRC, we see this as a temporary dynamic and and it corrected very quickly in DRT literally within six to nine months, and the and the SIM registration were back the following year to the same level. So we we think that this will correct itself very quickly. In terms of rollout in Tanzania, I think Manjun mentioned that we've added over 100 tenancies in Q3 in Tanzania, for example. Obviously, COVID had a slowdown impact like the rest of the world, but we don't see any other dynamic shift in Tanzania, and we're actively in conversation with all our customers in Tanzania about further rollouts over the next few months and progressing longer term. And then regarding your point on the debt capacity and what can that buy us? Well, look, Again, if you look at our past performance on transactions and what we've paid, we believe that the facilities we have at hand today can deliver between 2,003 towers without having to do anything else further. And then beyond that, we can always utilize the further EBITDA expansion through the acquisitions we make and the growth that the existing business delivers. And ultimately, if and when needed, we could also go to the equity markets if we needed to. But we believe we've got ample capacity to add another 2,000 to 3,000 towers on top of Senegal. Great. And maybe I could follow it up with a question on your cost of debt declining so much. Would you be comfortable in breaching the 4.5x net debt to EBITDA level? Or is that you've changed your mind on that? I mean go ahead. Sorry. Yes. No, I was just going to say we still have a good target of 3.5% to 4.5%. We keep we think that is a suitable target for this business. However, having said that, if there is a suitable opportunity that we see where we may go above 4.5% but for a very short term period and then subsequently rebound to be back within that target, we certainly look at doing that. But I think we've stayed relatively within our target range for the last few years now, and we're relatively disciplined around that. But it would have to be something of scale or something that will subsequently rebound quickly for us to go above it. Our next question comes from Alexander Vengranovich from Renaissance Capital. Alexander, your line is now open. Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. A couple of things from my side. First one is a follow-up on the question regarding the outlook for the next year. Just wanted to make sure we are talking about the like for like comparison. So previously, you were talking about 1,000 to 1,500 of additional tenants per year as a kind of a matter of guidance. But after the acquisition of Senegal, do you are you now talking about the same base of the sites and tenants? Or do you already include the sites and the business acquired in Senegal in your outlook for the upcoming year? That's my first question. And the second, probably like a related question here regarding the shift of the size rollout this year. Does that automatically mean that next year, you're gonna have different seasonality in between the quarters with regards to the rollout plans of the MNOs? And the last question is more of a technical one on the working capital volatility. Like, usually, you were providing this metric in your presentation. Can you just probably briefly update us with regards to what's happening with the working capital in the third quarter? That's it from my side. Yes. Alex, Tom here. I'll take the first ones on tenancies, then Manjik can take the working capital one. The Senegal is separate to the outlook. So when we say 1,000 tenancies or 1,500 tenancies, that is excluding Senegal. So that's sort of five established markets that currently have. So we will add Senegal onto that at the time of closing. In terms of seasonality, yeah, I mean, I think we'll see probably more rollout in Q1 next year than we usually do just by virtue of the fact that we're getting a lot of orders now that will probably come on stream in in q one or early q two. So we may see a slight change in seasonality. I mean, it's it's probably not material enough to, you know, change your model, I would say. But yes, certainly, based on the timing of receiving a bunch of orders around now, that could be the case for next year. And then Manjit, do you want to take the working capital one? Yes. On working capital, we've had another good quarter on working capital. The way to actually think about it is the movement from Q2 to Q3 in terms of cash balance has increased by roughly around $250,000,000 Now the majority of that is driven by the bond top of about $225,000,000 So really, pounds 15,000,000 to £20,000,000 has actually come through underlying business growth and also good working capital management. So I think there's nothing really to mention on that. We've continued to have a strong level of receivables coming through the business. So yes, another good quarter on that basis. Okay, good. And maybe just a quick follow-up on the cost side. I've noticed that there was some around $700,000 increase of the corporate SG and A over the quarter. So just wanted to understand whether this new level of 5,900,000.0 of corporate SG and A on a quarterly basis is a new sustainable level? Or should we expect some sort of further volatility there? Yes, I'll take that one. Yes, we're seeing a little bit of an increase in the Holdco costs. That is partially driven by the fact that we've increased a little bit of expenditure for some of the M and A assets that we're going through. But we'll give a more of a long term guidance on Holdco at the full year. Thanks. Our next question comes from Omar Maher of EFG Hermes. I have one follow-up question on Senegal, actually. I was just wondering if you could share with us perhaps what is your base case for tenancy ratio over the medium term in Senegal. I was just asking a question because, I mean, in the event or in the scenario that the larger players, Senegal, doesn't take part in perhaps selling towers or colocation of any sort in Senegal? What sort of tenants ratio are we looking at? And what is as I said, the base case scenario that you're considering there? Yeah. Hey, Omar. So, yeah, Senegal comes with very close to one point zero tenancy ratio, so there's not much colocation. There's a few colo colos on there from both orange and espresso today, but not many at all, which is quite typical of when we go into a new market, to be honest, as the first sourco because typically mobile operators, they do a bit of sharing with each other, but but usually not too much. As we communicated at the time of announcement and at a half year, we would guide to a point one tenancy ratio increase per year over the next few years. So that would be our base case. And that assumes colos from both Sonotel or Orange and Espresso. I think on your point around Sonotel or Orange maybe not selling their towers, that that may well be the the case. But, you know, what we find in all markets is whilst operators may or may not want to sell their towers, they're very happy to co locate on other towers, particularly that of an independent tower company like us, you know, because it's it's very attractive from a financial and operational point of view. You know, they just pay a relatively low monthly lease rate to us rather than spending well over $100,000 on building a site and then running it themselves. It's the colocation product very much works with or without mobile operators selling their own cells. That makes sense. And then lastly, if I may, on Ethiopia, if you have any updates on the progress of the privatization momentum there? Omar. It's Kash. Good to hear your voice again. On Ethiopia, I think you would have seen some media sort of attention to the market. One, we view that the virus has had an impact in slowing the process down there. We still view MNO licenses to be issued in those countries. We're actively in conversations with the major African MNOs who are looking to enter Ethiopia, albeit our view is now that it's probably gonna be back 2021 driven by the global pandemic. And we're still very excited about the opportunity in Ethiopia, again, albeit that, you know, we we would be only entering on the basis of getting an operator license, a tower operator license, which is in the conversations, but again, delayed for the reasons I've just articulated. Our next question comes from Dilawar Farazi of Royal London AM. Just one last thing on the M and A. I guess you talked about the fact you're in advanced stages of negotiations on a number of things. Are you able to clarify if that's something that's likely to be a 2020 announcement or more likely to be sort of next year? And just to follow-up on Ethiopia in terms of the tower operating license, how long would that typically take to get? Dilawo, Tom here. Thanks for the question. Yes, look, certainly, it's possible that, you know, one or more deals could be signed this year, I. E, in the next couple of months and announced. So, you know, watch watch out for that. We we we very much hope that will be the case. That partly depends on how quickly other parties move those that were not totally in control, as you can imagine. But based on where we sit today, that is certainly possible. And then on Ethiopia, I mean, it's it's quite a unique situation because it's you know, Ethiopia is one of the last countries in the world which does not have a three and open telecoms market today. They have a one state owned operator, and they're running a process to issue licenses to the mobile operators first and then potentially to telco. So I don't know how long it will take. Originally, they planned to issue licenses in March earlier this year, which has now been delayed. Kash mentioned some of the press reports recently, which have been around tower companies not getting licenses there because they want everyone to colocate on Easthotel's infrastructure in the country today, which, you know, may may delay Telco's getting licenses further, albeit we don't believe that that solution is the best for the market because we think and others think that around 10,000 towers need to be built in the country over the next five years. And for that kind of scale, you need international power companies there with capital and expertise to do to do it. So, you know, we're remain engaged and and hopeful, but for now, there's many other things more imminent and higher priority for us. Our next question comes from Bertrand Dreyer of DEG. Bertrand, your line is now open. Yes. Hi, Kash. Hi, Tom. Hi, Manjit. Thank you very much also from my side for the presentation, and congratulations for the successful tapping of the capital markets and also the good development on the margins. And I have a question with regard to the working capital again. I mean, we see in all economies tightening liquidity and the receivable situation of companies is of high attention. What are your views and experiences with regards to the telecom sector more in general? Do you see tightening of liquidity, different payment behaviors of clients? And how is that in your value chain? Could you comment on that? Sure. Manjit, do you want to take that? Yes, sure. So I think from our perspective with our M and A customers, as I mentioned previously, we've seen no material movement in terms of our net receivables days. So if you recall, at H1, we were roughly around mid-40s in terms of number of days, and that's something that's actually tightened ever so slightly in Q3, which means that we are getting payments quicker and quicker from customers. I think one thing that we're seeing at the moment as well is that in our markets with mobile network operators more generally, we're seeing increasing traffic numbers. And in our markets, increasing traffic numbers have a direct correlation to cash flow for the mobile network operators. And so you're seeing some of them have relatively good months in terms of cash collections, and that's translating into payments. But really, for us, it's business as usual. We're seeing no material movements in terms of customers not paying up. Everything is very much on a BAU basis. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Patrick. Thanks, Patrick. We have a follow-up question from Omar Maher of EFG Hermes. Omar, your line is now open. Yes, hi, thank you. Just a quick follow-up. Are you planning to provide some separate guidance for the year 2021? Or is it remains rather within the medium term guidance that you've already provided? Yes. It's we'll, of course, talk about that in our full year results in Q1. But our guidance today is our medium term range of between thousand and 1,500 tenancies addition next year. I was referring to financial guidance, so on revenue growth, margins and so on. Sure. Manjit, do you want to take that? Yes, I'll take that one. What we'll do at the end of the year, when we do our full year announcement, we'll give similar guidance levels to what we gave previously. So we'll talk through revenue per tenant, number of new incremental tenancies split out between colocations and sites, OpEx and SG and A. So we'll give you the building blocks to which you can then utilize. Thank you. I will now hand you back to Kash Pantja. Thanks, Adam. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for the questions and coming on the call. We look forward to talking to you on our full year results call in in q one, back end of q one. Thank you. Bye bye.