The $3.5 billion bid for Vocus is a goer after the company yesterday backed the indicative offer.
The all-cash offer from Macquarie Group’s Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) and Aware Super, with the telco’s board confident the deal is in the best interest of shareholders.
The Scheme Implementation Deed (“SID”) will see a company owned by the MIRA/Aware Super consortium buy all Vocus’s shares at $5.50 each.
The offer is at a 25.6% premium to Vocus’s closing price of $4.38 a share on February 5.
The shares closed at $5 on Monday and on Tuesday rose 8.6% to end at $5.43.
MIRA revealed its indicative and non-binding bid for the telco on February 8 and was subsequently joined by the superannuation fund, Aware Super on February 23.
Having done due diligence on Vocus’s books the consortium has put a firm offer on the table. A couple of earlier offers for Vocus failed after due diligence, but this one didn’t.
“Feedback from shareholders in recent weeks on the indicative offer of $5.50 originally received from MIRA has been overwhelmingly positive and there is a broad recognition that this is a very fair value for Vocus shareholders,” Vocus chairman Bob Mansfield said in a statement.
“The Vocus Board is unanimous in our view that this offer is in the best interests of Vocus shareholders. In making this assessment, the board considered a range of alternatives, including the execution of our existing strategy under which the proceeds of an IPO of Vocus New Zealand would reduce debt and be invested in our core business.”
Vocus has been working on an initial public offering of its New Zealand operations, with the float scheduled for the 2020-21 financial year.
The deal will be subject to an independent expert’s report.
Some analysts reckon Vocus’s retail broadband business – Dodo and iPrimus – could be sold after the bid is done because they don’t seem to fit well with the approach of the bidders who seem more interested in infrastructure than retailing.
Vocus operates over 30,000 kilometres of fibre across major Australian cities and the fibre business is seen as the key asset sought after by the various bidders over the past three years.
