Australia's TPG to sell fibre, fixed assets to Vocus for $3.5 billion

By Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia's TPG Telecom said on Monday it would carve out its fibre and fixed network infrastructure assets in a sale to Macquarie and pension fund Aware Super-owned telecommunications group Vocus for A$5.25 billion ($3.54 billion).

Vocus will acquire TPG's enterprise, government and wholesale (EG&W) fixed business and fibre network assets and the wholesale residential Vision broadband business. TPG said it would retain its radio network infrastructure, mobile and fixed retail and wireless businesses.

TPG shares were down 1.2% by 0157 GMT on Monday after initially trading in positive territory following the sales announcement.

Vocus will provide fixed network services back to TPG as part of the deal terms.

The A$5.25 billion price tag represents an 11.2 times 2024 earnings multiple for TPG's fibre assets, according to a person familiar with the matter. Vocus declined to comment on the sale multiple.

Vocus will operate a network of more than 50,000 km (31,068 miles) of owned or leased fibre, about 15,000 km of international submarine cables, and almost 20,000 connected buildings after the deal is complete, it said in a statement.

Data has become an increasingly hot sector for global dealmaking in 2024 as demand for data centres and fibre network grows in line with artifical intelligence (AI) usage.

"Digitisation is a theme we are very focused on as there's just an increasing need for data and moving data in a safe and secure way," said Ani Satchcroft, Macquarie Asset Management's co-head of Asia Pacific infrastructure.

"In our daily lives we are creating data and moving that data around a lot. The way we think about servicing that is there are individal components but we are focused on that digital infrastructure ecosystem and we are investing in data centres and also fibre networks. There's no point having data centres if you can't get the data in and out of those centres so that is why the networks are so important."

Macquarie Asset Management has finalised around A$32 billion worth of deals in the past six weeks with the A$24 billion AirTrunk deal, the A$3 billion stake sale in Queensland Airport and the Vocus deal.

TPG expects the deal to deliver net cash proceeds between A$4.65 billion and A$4.75 billion, which the firm intends to use for further management of capital and other investments.

The EGW unit accounted for about 18% of TPG's total fiscal 2022 revenue of A$5.42 billion, while its broadband provider Vision Network currently services more than 410,000 homes across six major Australian capitals and three regional Victorian cities, according to its website.

The deal comes after TPG Telecom's asset swap deal with bigger rival Telstra - which involves Telstra buying spectrum and transmission towers from TPG, and the latter selling 4G and 5G coverage using Telstra infrastructure - was blocked amid strong regulatory opposition.

TPG shares are down about 2.4% so far in 2024, according to LSEG data.

($1 = 1.4848 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney, additional reporting Rishav Chatterjee and Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Diane Craft and Jacqueline Wong)