In Episode 7 of QAV America, Cameron and Tony unpack the rollercoaster of IHS Holding (NYSE: IHS), a telecom tower operator entrenched in the geopolitical chaos and economic turbulence of Nigeria and beyond. They dive into IHS’s financials, foreign exchange exposure, and growth prospects, all while navigating sovereign risk, coups, and currency collapse. Alongside, the duo discusses Trump’s new tariff threats, how macroeconomic noise distracts from fundamentals, and why ignoring the headlines might be the smartest investing strategy. It’s part deep dive, part reality check, and part investor therapy.

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### **🕒 Timestamps & Key Topics**

– **[00:00:00 ] Catching up, weather, and family stories**

– **[00:02:00 ] US Portfolio Update** – Down 3.7% vs. S&P 500 down 2.6%

– **[00:03:30 ] Annual Performance (Australia FY)** – QAV portfolio up ~25% vs. S&P 500 ~6%

– **[00:04:30 ] Trump’s Tariff Threats** – 50% on EU, 25% on Apple iPhones

– **[00:06:00 ] Investing Philosophy** – Ignore macro noise, focus on fundamentals (Buffett/Munger approach)

– **[00:07:00 ] Pulled Pork: IHS Holding (NYSE: IHS)**

– Largest tower operator in Nigeria (39,000 sites)

– 95% of revenue via long-term leases

– HQ in London, ops in Africa, LATAM, Middle East

– **[00:35:00 ] Conclusion** – High risk, high potential; good track record in tough markets

[00:00:00 ]
Cameron: Welcome back to QAV America. This is episode seven. We’re recording this on the 27th of May. My name is Cameron Riley. With me is Tony Kynaston. How are you? Tk?
TK: Very well. Thank you, cam, as the rain. Comes in
Cameron: Raining in
TK: at Cape Shank.
Cameron: who’s
TK: It’s moved, actually. It’s moved on now. It’s very Scottish down here at the moment.
Cameron: Speaking of which, I have a, a Scottish aunt who’s coming to a, or is in Australia actually at the moment, but she’s coming to Brisbane at the end of this week, who I’ve never met before. One of my dad’s sisters, she’s coming to spend a week with us and Brissy. That’ll be nice.
TK: Oh, nice. Yeah.
Cameron: Um.
TK: you all the low down on your dad.
Cameron: Yeah, looking forward to
TK: Yeah.
Cameron: I think she was quite young when he left Scotland, so I don’t think she actually knew him very well at all. So I think ’cause they had like 12 kids in the family and I think, [00:01:00 ] uh, she’s one of the younger ones and he was the third eldest. So, and he left when he was like 18 or 19 and came to Australia.
So then, yeah, last time they saw him until he went
TK: That’s a.
Cameron: Not a year or so, but a year or two before he died.
TK: That’s a sliding doors moment. You could have wound up anywhere in the world, couldn’t you, but till your father chose Australia.
Cameron: Well, no, my mother was here, so if he’d gone somewhere else, I wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be me. It’d be someone else.
TK: Yeah, true.
Cameron: Anywho,
TK: I.
Cameron: uh, let’s, uh, talk about our US portfolio, Tony. It was down a little bit in the last seven days, down 1.3%, and the benchmark was up. Quite a bit, 9.85%, uh, according to But then when I looked at the charts, that doesn’t make much sense ’cause the
TK: Yeah, it sounds like a lot.
Cameron: down for the week.
me just open up again and see if wrote that down [00:02:00 ] incorrectly
in the last week. So that’s say May 19th. Yeah. Okay. Now it’s given me a completely, yeah, it’s, uh, it says it was down 1.93%. Okay.
TK: go.
Cameron: There you
TK: We need, we need some, uh, some television hold music while you check things
Cameron: yeah, yeah.
TK: a little, little bit of Herb Albert and a Tijuana Brass or something in the background.
Cameron: I just,
I just, edited out of the show. It’s all right. No one knows
TK: Oh, okay. I’m referring to something which hasn’t happened.
Cameron: Yeah, actually. Okay, so looking at this now, it says we’re down 3.7% for the last seven days, and the s and p 500 was down 2.6% for the last seven days, so we were down a little bit more, but not by that much. So that sounds a lot more reasonable anyway
TK: Yeah,
Cameron: the numbers I got earlier.
TK: sounds with my, uh, mental picture of what’s happened in the US in the last week
Cameron: [00:03:00 ] Yeah.
TK: stock market. Hmm.
Cameron: But, uh, this Australian Financial year, which is from the 1st of July through to today, our portfolio is up about 25% versus the s and p up about a little bit less than 6%. So. We’re still doing quite a bit better than the benchmark, even though we’ve
TK: Mm-hmm.
Cameron: way since Trump started doing his tariff business.
We’re still comparatively doing quite well and can’t complain.
TK: Yeah, we don’t complain ’cause nobody listens.
Cameron: Speaking of Trump’s tariffs, we talked about this on our Australian show, but he
TK: I.
Cameron: started talking more about throwing tariffs around, uh, willy-nilly this week, 50% to the EU, 25% on apples iPhones, if they’re not made in America. [00:04:00 ] Uh, you know, and we talked about on the Australian show how it’s mostly, I think just misdirection.
It’s just, uh, maybe a negotiating tactic, but I don’t think so really. I think it’s just misdirection while they’re pushing through the one big beautiful bridge bill uh, trying to rush that through and get a lot of. Project 2025 projects push through while people aren’t paying attention. That’s my take on it, but I know you think it might be an a genuine negotiating tactic.
TK: Oh, I think it’s probably both Cam. It’s uh, it’s getting people to call Trump and start dealing. Um, the only leverage he’s had, he has is to impose a big tariff and then pull it back. I guess if they start to deal. And like training a dog, isn’t it? It’s like, um. beating will stop when you come to heal. Uh, yeah, it is also, uh, because nothing, I don think there’s been any renegotiations of tariffs or much renegotiations of tariffs [00:05:00 ] yet. It may happen, as you say, there’s been a big bill passed in the, uh.
Cameron: House.
TK: Alex, thank you. I was trying to think of the right term in the American Congress, um, and taken to the Senate, so we’ll see what happens with the big, beautiful bridge Bill. It’s a lovely bridge.
Cameron: a lovely bridge. It’s a beautiful bridge and it’s gonna be
TK: Okay.
Cameron: Don’t gimme those negative waves. Uh, but I just wanna point out for, for new listeners, American listeners, our approach to all of this sort of macroeconomic turbulence that’s going on as we see each say each week in our show is basically to ignore it.
We pay much attention to the noise, which is a Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger rule. Ignore the noise. We just focus on the businesses, looking for businesses that we wanna invest in. know, we spend our time looking for businesses that are generating a lot of cash for good history of generating cash seeing if we can buy them at what we think is a [00:06:00 ] discount to their intrinsic valuation.
speaking of businesses, I’m gonna talk about one today. I’m gonna do a pulled pork on a company called IHS. one of the things that I love about. Dipping our toes in the American market, as I’ve said over recent episodes, is this. Lots of businesses that we don’t get to see in Australia. Lots of different businesses with different business models in different markets, and I find it really interesting to learn about these businesses and, and what they’re doing and how well they’re doing.
IHS is one of those, ticker is our IHS. It’s IHS Holding is the name of the company. on the New York Stock Exchange. This isn’t your typical sort of Wall Street, darling. It’s a telecom tower powerhouse that focuses on emerging markets, and when you drill into it, there’s a lot of high stakes, big risks, big rewards as well.
[00:07:00 ] But there’s a lot of stuff going on here. So what does IHS holding do? They’re literally the nuts and bolts of the telecommunication sector in Nigeria, primarily, company’s headquarters are in London, but they are the world’s third largest independent owner and operator of telecom towers. Believe it or not, they have 39,000 sites.
And their focus is predominantly on emerging markets. So Nigeria is about two thirds of their revenue, but there’s also Sub-Saharan and Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. So of course every time you make a phone call, every time you use a mobile, that signal travels via a tower. IHS own the towers and lease them out to telecommunications companies.
So they, they, they focus on the critical infrastructure. Telecoms [00:08:00 ] companies, apparently, I didn’t know this, don’t run their own mobile tower infrastructure. Often like IHS. That own them and operate them, and then they lease them out with long-term leases, obv