A consortium of investors led by South African private equity fund manager Metier has invested $36m in Africa Mobile Networks (AMN).

The consortium includes MCB Equity Fund, the private equity arm of MCB Group, CDC Group, DEG, Proparco and other leading institutions.

As part of the transaction, the consortium is also acquiring $3.5m of existing shares and in total will own a significant minority shareholding in AMN.

Thierry Dalais, Chairman of Metier, said: “The AMN leadership team and its stakeholders have created an exceptional business. That we are able to assemble and lead a first class set of investors to bring more telecommunication connectivity to the unconnected at an affordable price, is doing good in our view.”

“The AMN business today is evidence of great entrepreneurship, systems engineering skills, on the ground logistical execution capabilities, supported by the deep investment already made by others in telecommunication network connectivity industries. We wish the AMN leadership and management team continued support from its customers, and to AMN’s now enlarged stakeholder group, good long term returns.”

The proceeds of the new growth equity will be used to fund AMN’s business from the current level to over 5,000 towers across more than 15 countries in Africa by the end of 2023.

Rony Lam, CEO of MCB Capital Markets, said: "We are delighted to join this impressive group of investors in an important funding round for AMN. The company is a leader in connecting rural areas through mobile telecommunication, a critical enabler for mobilising resources and unlocking the full potential of remote communities. We look forward to supporting Metier and management in the company's next phase of development."

AMN builds and operates mobile network base stations in partnership with tier-1 licensed mobile network operators such as MTN, Orange and Vodafone to extend their rural coverage.

AMN provides a full turnkey NaaS (Network as a Service) approach to enable mobile network operators in Sub-Saharan Africa to expand their coverage deep into rural areas with no capital expenditure or operating equipment risk borne by the mobile operators in these remote locations.

AMN currently operates circa 2,000 mobile network base stations in rural towns and villages across 10 countries, serving around 7 million people who were previously unconnected and processing 1.2 billion phone calls per annum.

AMN is currently the fifth largest independent tower company operating in Africa, and is growing rapidly.

Following a 2020 acquisition of communications technology vendor Range Networks, based in Silicon Valley, California, AMN has also become an original equipment manufacturer and recently deployed its own OpenRAN based equipment, which is capable of offering integrated 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services from a single radio node.

Michael Darcy, CEO of AMN, said: “We are delighted to receive this significant new round of capital to fund the next phase of AMN’s growth and from such a prestigious partner as Metier, with its long track record of strong values and strong financial returns, backed by some of the world’s biggest development finance institutions. Working together with such heavyweight investors enables AMN to take a huge step forward in building many, many tens of thousands of towers across most of sub-Saharan Africa to connect and empower hundreds of millions of Africans who are disenfranchised today.”