Singtel has notified the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) that there is no deal in the making to sell telco Optus to Canadian investor Brookfield Asset Management.
The announcement to the SGX comes after an article in the Australian Financial Review suggesting Singtel was in "advanced talks" to offload Optus, the second largest telco across the Tasman, to private equity giant Brookfield for a whopping A$16 billion.
"There is no impending deal to offload Optus for the said sum, as reported," Singtel said.
"Optus remains an integral and strategic part of the Singtel Group and we are committed to Australia for the long term," the Singapore telco incumbent added.
However, Singtel did not appear to rule out a future sale despite the announcement.
"... we regularly conduct strategic reviews of our portfolio to optimise the value of our assets and businesses and will explore all options to maximise shareholder value," Singtel noted.
Early November last year, Optus suffered an extended service outage and was forced to explain itself before an Australian Senate Committee.
Optus' then chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was sharply criticised for her handling of the incident, and communications around the outage, and had to resign on November 20.
Extraordinarily, Optus blamed its parent company for the incident, saying Singtel had sent it "bad router data". This was denied by Singtel.
The Australian telco is now focusing on network resilience and appointing a new chief executive, Singtel said.
Singtel is majority owned by the Singapore government through its Temasek Holdings investment vehicle.
Brookfield and Infratil bought Vodafone New Zealand, now One NZ, in May 2019 for $3.4 billion. In July 2022, Vodafone NZ's passive mobile tower assets were sold to private equity companies InfraRed and Northleaf for $1.7 billion.
Infratil reinvested as part of the transaction to form TowerCo to manage the mobile tower assets, taking a 20% stake, with InfraRed and Northleaf holding the remainder in equal shares.
In June 2023, Infratil bought Brookfield's 49.95% stake in One NZ for $1.8 billion, and now owns 99.9% of the telco.
1 Comments
"Singtel – which entered a trading halt late on Wednesday – said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange that there was “no impending deal to offload Optus for the said sum”.
But The Australian understands that Brookfield is in advanced talks with Singtel about acquiring a significant stake in Optus – not the whole company."
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