Australian Tower Network (ATN), owned by pension fund AustralianSuper and Singapore telecommunications major Singtel, said on Friday it will buy mobile phone tower company Axicom for A$3.58 billion ($2.67 billion).
The deal would see ATN add Axicom’s 2,000-odd towers to its existing portfolio of 4,000.
ATN was widely expected as the likely winner of an auction for Axicom’s assets, given its existing footprint and potential synergies in adding towers, and AustralianSuper’s deep pockets.
The deal is understood to value Axicom at 20 to 25-times earnings, on a post-synergies basis, The Australian Financial Review reported.
Axicom expects $235 million revenue and $150 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation, in the 2022 financial year, according to information sent to potential acquirers earlier in the process.
Macquarie Asset Management and UniSuper, a UBS managed infrastructure fund, paid about $2 billion for what was Crown Castle’s Australian portfolio of 1,700 mobile communication towers in 2015. They renamed it Axicom.
- Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell
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