Helios Towers Africa (HTA) has raised US$630 million in new equity resources from existing and new shareholders. The news comes as the company signed a deal to buy 3,100 towers from Bharti Airtel in a deal reputedly worth around US$2 billion.

Existing shareholders including: Quantum Strategic Partners, Helios Investment Partners, Albright Capital Management, RIT Capital Partners and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), all added to their current stakes and are now joined by new shareholders Providence Equity Partners and IFC African, Latin American, and Caribbean Fund.

HTA also expects to complete negotiations shortly on new and extended debt facilities amounting to of over US$350 million with a syndicate of international and local lending institutions.

Following this latest injection of capital into the business, HTA will have raised over US$1.8 billion in external financing since inception in late 2009 to fund acquisitions and organic growth.

HTA estimates that there is a need for 100,000 towers in Africa to merely satisfy demand for 2G coverage and associated capacity demand over the next five years. This towers requirement is underpinned further by the growing demand for 3G and 4G data, which is driving the need for significant additional infrastructure capacity and in-fill across the continent.

As a result of the recently announced transaction with Bharti Airtel, HTA is, on an owned-tower basis, the largest tower company in Africa, with over 7,800 owned towers.

Zain Iraq says that a US$4.5 billion lawsuit against the company has been dismissed by the local courts.

In April, Zain was issued the lawsuit that stemmed from its 2007 acquisition of an Iraqi mobile network operator Iraqna.

In a statement, Zain confirmed that it had received the lawsuit last August from Korek Telecom, which alleges that Zain’s purchase of Iraqna blocked its own rival offer.

Zain acquired Iraqna for US$1.2 billion from Orascom Telecom, having been providing mobile telephony in Iraq since December 2003 (previously under the name of MTC-Atheer). In August 2007, the company acquired a 15-year nationwide licence for US$1.25 billion, and shortly thereafter acquired Iraqna.

On January 5, 2008 Zain Group merged Atheer with Iraqna under the brand name Zain.

As a consequence of the lawsuit, an Iraqi court had ruled that revenues from the Iraqna part of the merged company had to be placed into a holding account and not released pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

As the lawsuit has now been dismissed, Zain confirmed that it can apply to have those revenues released by the court.

Korek Telecom has two weeks to appeal.

Bharti Airtel has announced plans to sell around 3,100 telecom towers in four countries to Helios Towers.

Airtel, which has been looking to sell towers in its African portfolio for a while did not say which countries the sales took place in, nor how much the deal is worth.

However, a sale of that volume is thought to be worth up to US$2 billion, which Airtel said it would be using to repay debt.

The deal will expand Helios Towers’ tower coverage in Africa to over 7,800 owned towers.

As standard, Helios will take on a lease from Airtel as the lead tenant, and will then sublet capacity to rival networks.

Samsung has issued a sharp profits warning, and is forecasting that its second quarter profits will be badly hurt by a slowdown in smartphone sales, and local currency problems.

The company warned that its underlying operating profit is likely to fall by a quarter, to KRW7.2 trillion (US$7.1 billion) for the three months to the end of June.

That marks the third consecutive quarter of operating profit declines, but the size of the latest forecast has alarmed investors.

Although the company said that declining smartphone sales in an increasingly saturated and competitive market was in part to blame, it was also hurt by a strong South Korean currency that reduces the value of its profits from overseas.

The Korean currency has risen by more than 11 per cent against the US dollar and nearly seven per cent against the euro over the past year.

Taiwan smartphone manufacturer, HTC reported another decline in its quarterly revenues, but did manage to return to profit.

The company announced unaudited revenues of NT$65 billion (US$2.17 billion), down on the NT$70.7 billion a year ago.

The company managed to increase its quarterly profit to NT$2.26 billion from NT$1.52 billion, and a marked return to profit after the loss of NT$1.88 billion it posted three months ago.

HTC also posted an underlying operating profit of NT$2.43 billion, the first it has reported after three consecutive quarters of operating losses.