Moody’s Assigns Ba3 Rating to Helios Towers’ Proposed Bond Issuance
Moody’s Ratings has today assigned a Ba3 backed senior unsecured rating to Helios Towers plc’s (Helios Towers) proposed benchmark-size senior unsecured notes to be issued by HTA Group, Ltd., a fully owned subsidiary of Helios Towers.
Helios Towers’ existing ratings, including its Ba3 corporate family rating (CFR), Ba3-PD probability of default rating (PDR) and HTA Group, Ltd.’s existing Ba3 backed senior unsecured rating on its $850 million notes due in 2029, remain unaffected. The outlook on both entities is stable, Moody’s said in its update today.
However, the global ratings agency stated that Helios Towers’ rating is subject to the receipt of final documentation, the terms and conditions of which are not expected to change in any material way from the draft documents that we have reviewed.
The Ba3 rating assigned to the proposed backed senior unsecured notes is the same as Helios Towers’ CFR and the same as the existing senior unsecured notes issued by HTA Group, Ltd.
The notes will have substantially the same terms and conditions as the existing senior unsecured notes and therefore rank pari passu.
According to Moody’s, Helios Towers intends to use the proceeds from the note issuance to repay existing debt, and ratings analysts therefore expect the transaction to be leverage-neutral.
Helios Towers’ ratings remain supported by its leading position in seven high-growth African telecom tower markets and presence in two additional countries.
The company ratings profile was also backed up its track record of strong growth, improving profitability, and annuity-like contracted cash flows underpinned by long-term contracts with leading mobile network operators (average remaining contract life of 6.6 years, representing $5.3 billion of future revenue), which benefit from automatic price escalators for power costs, inflation and foreign currency depreciation.
Helios ratings also reflect its history of prudent financial management and moderate leverage for the telecom tower industry (4.5x as of June 2025 LTM), which analysts expect to decline to below 4.0x by the end of 2026.
It also includes growing positive free cash flow generation, which ratings analysts expect to increase further as the company reduces expansionary capex and refocuses on organic growth through colocations.
The rating is constrained by the high-risk sovereign environments where the company operates, notably Tanzania (B1 stable) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, B3 stable), which account for around 38% and 32% of EBITDA, respectively.
Moody’s said the stable outlook reflects Helios Towers’ strong track record of adhering to its financial policies and our expectation that the company will continue to generate free cash flow and maintain its solid credit metrics and adequate liquidity. MTN Nigeria Lost N1.02trn over Large Scale Selloffs
