Vocus has officially been acquired by the consortium of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) and superannuation fund Aware Super.
The consortium, called Voyage, will pay around AU$3.5 billion, or AU$5.50 per share, to fully acquire Vocus.
The deal gained court approval at the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday and received the stamp of approval by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Friday morning, which finalised the deal.
Prior to that, shareholders earlier this week voted almost unanimously for the deal to go ahead, with over 99% of votes being cast in favour of the sale to Voyage.
The network provider is also expected to be removed from the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday.
MIRA started its chase of Vocus at the start of February, while Aware Super joined the fray later that month after it was spurned by greenfields fibre company Opticomm last year.
With the deal now finalised, Vocus has finally been sold after years of interest from various potential suitors.
In 2017, private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Affinity Equity Partners both submitted separate offers to acquire Vocus, but both of those offers were eventually terminated due to the network provider missing its FY17 net profit guidance.
Two years later, EQT Infrastructure offered to acquire Vocus at AU$5.25 per share, but the deal fell through after just a few weeks. Energy provider AGL then presented an offer a month later, at AU$4.85 per share, but that was also dropped due to there not being “sufficient certainty of creating value”.
For Vocus’ latest half-year results, the network provider reported recurring revenue increased by 2% to AU$896 million while underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) remained steady, hovering at around AU$192 million.
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Source: Networking - zdnet.com
