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Wireless towers operator IHS Holding Ltd. is exploring a potential initial public offering, shareholder Wendel SE said Tuesday, in a deal that could be the biggest listing ever by an African company in the U.S.
IHS on Friday flagged the listing, saying the timing, number of shares to be offered and price range of the proposed offering are yet to be determined.
Bloomberg News reported in February that IHS Holding had selected Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as global coordinators for a listing that could value Africa’s largest operator of wireless towers at as much as $7 billion. At that size it would be the largest IPO in the U.S. by an African company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Besides Wendel, a French buyout firm, IHS’s owners include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and South African wireless carrier MTN Group Ltd. The company started reviving work on a share sale late last year after scrapping plans back in 2018 due to uncertainty around a presidential vote in Nigeria, its main market, Bloomberg News reported at the time.
The IPO is one of at least two big tower offerings that’s in the works. Vodafone Group Plc said last month that it will list its mobile masts business in Frankfurt next year.
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China, the world’s biggest oil importer, has ramped up purchases of American crude in the lead-up to a highly-anticipated review of the trade deal between the two economic powerhouses.
As much as 14 million barrels — or seven super-class tankers full — of U.S. oil will be loaded next month for delivery to China, according to estimates by Vortexa Ltd. based on provisional tanker bookings. If all those shipments make the trip that will be more than double the volumes set for August.
The surge in bookings comes before a review of the phase-one trade deal, under which China pledged to boost purchases of U.S. energy products. The talks, which were originally planned for last weekend, have been delayed indefinitely, however, amid deteriorating relations between the two countries.
China’s oil imports from the U.S. are seen increasing in September
Chinese imports of U.S. goods in the first six months of the year only reached about 23 percent of the total target under the trade agreement for 2020, Bloomberg calculations based on data from General Administration of Customs show. The nation’s refineries have been cranking up run rates as the economy emerges from a virus-induced slump, which may be another reason for the boost in buying.
“The rise in U.S. crude purchases is likely politically driven,” said Serena Huang, a senior analyst at Vortexa, a market analytics firm. “China is still sitting on large stockpiles of oil, and current U.S. crude prices are not much more favorable than their Middle East competitors.”
Oil-refining heavyweights PetroChina Co. and Sinopec chartered more than 40 percent of the China-bound supertankers set for September loading as of Aug. 17, Vortexa’s data show. Grades such as WTI Midland and Mars were among the types of American oil purchased by China, but they weren’t always cheaper than alternative feedstock from other regions, according to traders.
A Beijing-based Sinopec official at the company’s press office and an official at China National Petroleum Corp., parent company of PetroChina, both declined to comment on the matter.
China bought an average about 568,500 tons, or 4.2 million barrels, of U.S. oil a month in May and June, General Administration of China Customs data show. The country imported no American oil for the previous five months as relations between the two countries deteriorated amid the coronavirus.
China’s energy demand has rebounded in-line with an uptick in its economy, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit. “These new orders for U.S. crude will help to improve China’s overall progress toward the U.S.-China phase one trade deal targets,” he said.
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