Helios Towers, a Sub-Saharan telecoms tower operator, is gearing up for an IPO in April through which it will sell shares in London and Johannesburg.

“We want to be positioned well to tap the equity market for funding when and if the right opportunity in terms of expansion and growth comes along,” CEO Kash Pandya said in an interview, Bloomberg reported.

“There is opportunity for additional acquisitions in the markets that we operate in with 3,500 towers still owned by our customers,” he added.

In November 2017, Bloomberg reported Helios was seeking a valuation of at least $2 billion. Now it is expecting the valutation to be around $2.6 billion including debt.

Helios Towers doesn’t need to raise immediate cash with the listing. Rather the company is preparing for the growth it expects in the next five years and is targeting expansion into additional countries.

The company currently owns 6,500 towers in Republic of the Congo, the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Ghana. In the latter it is “very and active and hungry” to pursue a contract for 750 towers up for renegotiation in 2020, Pandya said.

Helios Towers expects at least 25 per cent of its shares will be freely traded after the sale and is not selling any new stock.

The tower company is owned by funds including Soros Fund Management and Albright Capital Management, as well as telecoms companies Millicom and Bharti Airtel.

Helios Towers is one of three major African tower companies looking into an IPO in 2018, the other two being Eaton Towers and IHS Towers.