Helios Towers shares drop as institutional investors offload £43m stake

Telecoms tower company Helios Towers has announced a secondary placing of shares, in which stakeholders Newlight Partners and RIT Capital Partners sold a combined £43.2m of stock, causing the share price to sink on Wednesday.

Newlight and RIT, which have not sold any shares in Helios Towers since the company's IPO in 2019, sold 37.6m shares in total at 115p each. The placing reduced their stakes to 13.2% and 3.2%, respectively.

"The sellers' intention with this transaction is to provide additional liquidity in the company's shares while remaining sizeable shareholders in the company post-sale," Helios Towers said.

Proceeds from secondary offerings go back to the sellers in question and not to the company, but are not dilutive to shareholders since no new shares are issued.

The stock fell 7.5% to 114p in early deals. Helios Towers' share price has surged by 42% since the start of 2024 and stood at 123.2p at Tuesday's close, broadly in line with its IPO price five years ago.