IHS Nigeria Plc (IHS), which owns and manages mobile-phone towers in three African countries, increased the price it’s offering shareholders as it plans to delist from the Lagos-based bourse.

The company agreed to pay 4.35 naira a share at a meeting today in the Nigerian commercial capital, Chairman Bashir Ahmad El-Rufai said. The initial offer was 3.70 naira. IHS’s shares rose the most in a week, advancing 4.8 percent to 3.30 naira by the close in Lagos.

IHS is withdrawing from Africa’s second-biggest exchange after it raised $1 billion last year to more than double its assets. The company is also giving investors the option of remaining shareholders in closely held parent, IHS Holdings, and said in a letter distributed at the meeting it probably won’t pay dividends for at least five years as it focuses on growth.

IHS Holdings signed an agreement on Dec. 20 to buy MTN Group Ltd.’s towers in Rwanda and Zambia, a total of 1,228 sites. The company said in July it raised $522 million in new capital, $280 million in debt and $242 million in equity in the preceding year to fund its expansion across Africa. The group plans to own or manage 20,000 towers by 2016 from the current 8,500 towers in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, Chief Executive Officer Issam Darwish said in an Aug. 5 interview. The company rents out its towers to several mobile operators at a time, cutting their capital costs.

“It’s a fair offer,” shareholder Emmanuel Dike Itipah said in an interview at the meeting. “Every investor is always looking forward to returns.”

Source: Bloomberg (by Yinka Ibukun)