Our long-term viability statement

The preparation of this long-term viability statement involved the Board reviewing the Group’s long-term prospects and ability to meet future commitments and liabilities as they fall due over the three-year review period, including scenario analysis on liquidity events through stress and sensitivity tests to assess the resilience and strength of our forecasts.

In accordance with provision 31 of the 2018 UK Corporate Governance Code, the Board of directors assessed our long-term strategic prospects as well as the ability of the Group to meet future commitments and liabilities as they fall due within the assessment period.

The Group prepares a ten-year strategic business plan which is used for long-term forecasting purposes and impairment testing (including strategic decisions such as capital investment) and is aligned with the average life of our regulatory licences and network assets, and the potential opportunities in the underpenetrated African telecoms sector.

For the purpose of our long-term viability assessment, the Board primarily focuses on liquidity and assesses the Group’s long-term viability assessment over a three-year period for the following reasons:

• Our three-year liquidity plan matches the current visibility of the tenure of our financing arrangements, and
• Key macroeconomic and political developments which impact on our headroom and liquidity include currency devaluation, inflation, fiscal policies and sovereign credit ratings. Our visibility of the impact that these factors have on debt markets generally reduces past three years.

While the Board believes the Group will be viable over a longer period, given the inherent estimation uncertainty involved in forecasting liquidity assumptions over a longer period, the Board concluded that a three-year period provides a reasonable degree of confidence in forecasting liquidity while assessing longer-term prospects. Although our long-term viability assessment is performed over a three-year period, which matches the current tenure of our financing arrangements as a matter of prudence, the Group also assessed viability on a five-year time horizon. Given the maturities of our existing financing arrangements, which are materially within the three-year period, the assessment on this five-year period did not result in material changes in conclusion as compared to the three-year assessment period. To test goodwill impairment, the Group has used a ten-year period, taking into account the nature of markets in which the Group operates, the period of its licences, etc.  against the three-year period for viability assessment which focuses on the Group’s liquidity.

In assessing the Group’s longer-term prospects, the directors have considered the demand potential for 4G and 5G services in the 14 markets in which the Group operates. While continuing to invest in 5G network to be ready for future demands, in the short to medium term, the Group will continue to focus on its strategy to expand data services, increase data customer penetration by leveraging and expanding its 4G network and expanding home broadband (HBB) services and enterprise solutions across its key markets.

In assessing mobile money’s longer-term prospects, the Group considered that it operates in countries with limited traditional banking services, high cash dependence and high cost of banking which presents significant opportunities to expand the mobile money business. The Group’s mobile money value proposition aims at safety, ease and convenience, assured float and cash availability, and trust. Additionally, mobile money continues to leverage the GSM business by onboarding more mobile services customers, build a strong merchant ecosystem and expand distribution channels.

For both mobile services and mobile money, the Group's strategy is focused on delivering a great customer experience as a driver of sustainable growth. 

This assessment is prepared based on our business strategy. Adequate sensitivities and stress tests have been conducted through various scenarios, both individually and collectively, based on our overall risk assessment framework.

Our multinational footprint means we’re constantly exposed to the risk of adverse currency fluctuations and the macroeconomic conditions in our markets. We derive revenue and incur costs in local currencies where we operate, but we also incur costs in foreign currencies, mainly from buying equipment and services from manufacturers and technology service providers. That means adverse movements in exchange rates between the currencies in our OpCos and the US dollar could have a negative effect on our liquidity, financial condition and long-term prospects. In some markets, we face instances of limited supply of foreign currency within the local monetary system. This negatively impacts our ability to make timely foreign currency vendor payments and constrains our ability to fully benefit at the Group level from strong cash generation by those OpCos. Given the severity of this risk, especially in some OpCos, the Group's management continuously monitors the potential impact of exchange rate fluctuations as well as the limited supply of foreign currency, and performs stress tests while assessing the Group’s liquidity and prospects. The Group factors in the limited supply of foreign currency by way of considering potential devaluation, noting that an actual devaluation in future might result in better availability of foreign currency. In Nigeria, we've seen some encouraging macroeconomic signs in the past couple of quarters with inflation trending down, improved forex availability and a relatively stable currency.

In some markets, our operating costs are subject to fluctuations in global commodity prices, market uncertainty, energy costs (such as diesel and electricity) and so on. Prevailing macroeconomic conditions and a variety of other factors beyond our control, such as rising global inflation and the increase in global geopolitical tensions and conflicts, also contribute to this risk. To mitigate this risk, the Group continually re-evaluates its operating model and cost structure to identify innovative ways to optimise our costs and improve profitability.

The company ended the year in a strong cash position. Despite foreign exchange headwinds, net cash generated from operating activities in the past 12 months was $2.3bn, and our leverage (net debt to underlying EBITDA) ratio is 2.3x lease-adjusted leverage at 1.0x at the end of this financial year. Our cash balances, in conjunction with $373m of committed undrawn facilities at the date of approval of these financial statements, ensure we have sufficient buffers to continue to meet our financial obligations. On 20 May 2024, the Group announced that it had repaid in full the 5.35% guaranteed senior notes maturing in May 2024. This bond repayment of $550m was made exclusively out of the cash reserves at HoldCo, meeting the Group’s strategic objective of zero HoldCo external debt.

In light of the consistent strong operating cash generation and HoldCo cash accretion from upstreaming performance of the Group, we launched a share buy-back programme in March 2024 which was completed in October 2024. Following the Board’s approval of an additional buy-back of up to $100m, the Group announced, in December 2024, the start of the first tranche of $45m which was completed in April 2025. The Group maintains discretion on the second tranche and potential further buy-backs – and will evaluate these as and when appropriate.

The Group will continue to benefit from population growth and the need for increased connectivity and financial inclusion in the medium to long term in the countries where we operate. In this respect, in 2024/25, the Group invested $670m in tangible capex. The vast majority of this capital expenditure is aimed at continuing to capture the growth opportunities across our footprint by increasing the coverage and capacity of our network and expanding our distribution.

The key risks considered in the stress tests, keeping in mind the demographical and sectoral dynamics along with their potential negative impacts, are detailed here: