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IHS, IHS Holding Limited

Telecom Operators capital-intensive Distress / turnaround

Revenue is Nigeria (68%) and SSA (32%).

Latest annual: FY2025 20-F

IHS · IHS Holding Limited

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$1.6B

+3.6% YoY · 2% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.6B 5-yr avg $1.7B

Gross margin 55% 5-yr avg 47%

Operating margin 51.9% 5-yr avg 31.8%

Owner-earnings margin 45% 5-yr avg 31%

Free cash flow margin 45% 5-yr avg 31%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: A telecom carrier, renting access to a network that must be constantly rebuilt.
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 43% and operating margin about 25% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from −13% to 52% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −75 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on subscribers, revenue per user, and network capex. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 20-F →

Nigeria is 68% of revenue, with SSA the other meaningful segment at 32%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Nigeria68%$1.1B
SSA32%$513M

By geographyNigeria68%Rest of world32%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 20-F. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMDec 2025
								Income statement
$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.6B	RevenueRevenue
34%	40%	43%	41%	46%	52%	55%	55%	Gross marginGross mgn
($157M)	$332M	$388M	$312M	$524M	$604M	$821M	$821M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−12.8%	23.7%	24.6%	15.9%	27.2%	39.5%	51.9%	51.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($423M)	($322M)	($26M)	($459M)	($2.0B)	($1.6B)	$144M	$144M	Net incomeNet inc.
								Cash flow & returns
$642M	$635M	$750M	$907M	$854M	$729M	$936M	$936M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$385M	$409M	$383M	$469M	$436M	$363M	$316M	$380M	DepreciationDeprec.
$681M	$549M	$393M	$897M	$2.4B	$2.0B	$477M	$413M	Working capital & otherWC & other
—	$95M	$238M	$379M	$465M	$235M	$218M	$218M	CapexCapex
—	6.8%	15.1%	19.3%	24.1%	15.4%	13.7%	13.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
—	$540M	$512M	$529M	$389M	$494M	$719M	$719M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
—	38.5%	32.4%	27.0%	20.2%	32.4%	45.4%	45.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
—	$540M	$512M	$529M	$389M	$494M	$719M	$719M	Free cash flowFCF
—	38.5%	32.4%	27.0%	20.2%	32.4%	45.4%	45.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-30%	-27%	-2%	-41%	-1799%	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
−30%	−27%	−2%	−41%	n/m	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
$899M	$585M	$916M	$514M	$294M	$578M	$826M	$826M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$327M	$472M	$663M	$608M	$313M	$181M	$181M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$49M	$42M	$74M	$41M	$31M	$42M	$42M	InventoryInvent.
—	$409M	$499M	$669M	$498M	$377M	$278M	$278M	Accounts payablePayables
—	($33M)	$14M	$69M	$150M	($33M)	($55M)	($55M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$989M	$1.4B	$1.3B	$973M	$924M	$2.5B	$2.5B	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$684M	$831M	$1.3B	$1.2B	$648M	$1.2B	$1.2B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	1.4×	1.7×	1.0×	0.8×	1.4×	2.1×	2.1×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$518M	$656M	$780M	$763M	$619M	$403M	$263M	$263M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$4.4B	$5.5B	$6.3B	$5.3B	$4.2B	$4.5B	$4.5B	Total assetsAssets
—	$2.2B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$2.8B	$3.0B	Total debtDebt
—	$1.6B	$1.7B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$2.6B	$2.0B	$2.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-0.5×	0.5×	0.9×	0.4×	0.2×	0.3×	2.3×	2.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.1B	$110M	($473M)	($251M)	($251M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
								Per share
294M	294M	301M	331M	333M	333M	335M	336M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$4.19	$4.77	$5.25	$5.93	$5.78	$4.59	$4.72	$4.72	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.44	$-1.09	$-0.09	$-1.39	$-5.93	$-4.90	$0.43	$0.43	EPS (diluted)EPS
—	$1.84	$1.70	$1.60	$1.17	$1.48	$2.15	$2.14	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
—	$1.84	$1.70	$1.60	$1.17	$1.48	$2.15	$2.14	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	$0.32	$0.79	$1.14	$1.40	$0.71	$0.65	$0.65	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.87	$4.11	$5.05	$3.42	$0.33	$-1.42	$-0.75	$-0.75	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+2.0%/yr	−0.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+3.1%/yr (5-yr)	+3.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	+15.0%/yr (5-yr)	+15.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

335Mpeak FY2025

Gross margin

55%low FY2019

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.8×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$719Mowner earningsvs.$144Mnet incomelow FY2023

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2019FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $144M of profit into $719M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$144M

Owner earnings$719M · 45% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$144M	($1.6B)	($2.0B)	($459M)	($26M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$316M	+$363M	+$436M	+$469M	+$383M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$477M	+$2.0B	+$2.4B	+$897M	+$393M
Cash from operations	$936M	$729M	$854M	$907M	$750M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$218M	−$235M	−$465M	−$379M	−$238M
Owner earnings	$719M	$494M	$389M	$529M	$512M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	45%	32%	20%	27%	32%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“We previously identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 2.3×

Adequate

Operating income $821M ÷ interest expense $350M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.2B · 2.7× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $826M − debt $3.0B

What this means
Netting $826M of cash and short-term investments against $3.0B of debt leaves $2.2B owed, about 2.7× a year's operating profit (3.7× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -80d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 42 + DIO 22 − DPO 144 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 32%

High through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range 20%–45%; latest $719M = operating cash $936M − maintenance capex $218M

Industry peers: median 3%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 45% of revenue this year, a 32% median across 6 years.
Are earnings backed by cash? 6.52×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $936M ÷ net income $144M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.57×

Harvesting

Capex $218M ÷ depreciation $380M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.6B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.08×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $3.0B vs $1.3B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (7-yr record) · 6 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-3.44/share (latest year $0.43), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.75/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 1 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 2 of 6 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 12% → 40% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 12% early to 40% lately, median 25% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +3%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 3% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · −12.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +2.2%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“The implementation of new software and hardware, including new technology such as artificial intelligence (" AI "), involves risks and uncertainties that could cause disruptions, delays or deficiencies in the design, implementation or application of these systems.”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$2.5B

Cash & short-term investments$826M
Receivables$181M
Inventory$42M
Other current assets$1.5B

Current liabilities$1.2B

Debt due within a year$208M
Accounts payable$278M
Other current liabilities$718M

Current ratio2.08×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.05×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.69×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.3Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$208M due · $826M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Dec 31, 2025 balance sheet

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($803M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.1B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.4B$372M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$16Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2025

Over the record, the business generated $4.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$1.6B · 34%
Buybacks$10M · 0%
Retained (debt / cash)$3.2B · 66%

Returned to owners$10M
0% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $10M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $846M and cash and short-term investments rose $240M.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $10M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count14.1%
The diluted count rose from 294M to 336M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Peers, Telecom Operators

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
UNITUniti Group Inc.	$2.2B	—	32.9%	3%	1%
IHSIHS Holding Limited	$1.6B	43%	24.6%	—	32%
CABOCable One	$1.5B	—	27.3%	10%	19%
ZDZiff Davis	$1.5B	85%	12.3%	5%	24%
IDTIDT Corporation	$1.2B	24%	2.8%	75%	2%
TDSTelephone and Data Systems	$1.1B	—	2.2%	1%	3%
CCOICogent Communications Holdings Inc.	$976M	57%	16.1%	17%	14%
ATNIATN International Inc.	$667M	—	2.5%	1%	3%
Group median	—	50%	14.2%	—	9%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the home-market price, not the US ADR quote. IHS Holding Limited reports in USD, and every figure here (owner earnings, book value, the share count) is on that ordinary-share basis. Enter the price on the same basis: the local-exchange quote per ordinary share. A US ADR price in dollars bundles the ADR-to-ordinary ratio, so it will not reconcile with these figures and would throw the multiple off.

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what IHS Holding Limited has delivered.

IHS Holding Limited’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, IHS Holding Limited earns about $512M on its 32.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 45.4% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($512M) Net of stock comp

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+4%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’20→’25+3%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $719M on 336M shares outstanding, per the 20-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net debt $2.2B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh IHS against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "IHS Holding Limited (IHS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/IHS, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← IHG its page in the Manual IMMP →

Industry order: ← IDT the Telecom Operators chapter IRDM →