IHS Towers was the largest U.S. listing ever for a company with African roots. It owned the steel towers that hold up the cell networks in Nigeria and beyond. Phone companies rented space on them for their antennas and paid every month. By mid 2021, IHS ran 30,207 towers in nine countries, across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. In six of those markets it was the biggest tower operator.

Built in Lagos

Sam Darwish, an engineer, co-founded IHS in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2001. In Nigeria, phone companies had begun hiring outside firms to build their towers. The bet was that carriers would rather share towers than each build their own. IHS bought towers from carriers, built new ones, and leased the space. It grew across Africa, then into Latin America and Kuwait.

MTN Comes Calling

IHS cut the size of its offering and priced at $21 a share, the low end of its range, in October 2021. It began trading on the NYSE under the ticker IHS and fell 19 percent on its first day. The company later sold assets, including its Latin American towers in 2026. In February 2026 MTN Group, the African phone company, agreed to buy the rest of IHS for $8.50 a share. Shareholders approved the deal on August 4, 2026.

Cover: Two Towers, New York, Alfred Stieglitz. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for towers rising over a city.