Aussie Broadband confirms $258m takeover bid for Symbio
Aussie Broadband has made a binding offer worth up to $258 million to buy software group Symbio as the telecommunications group overtakes Vocus to become Australia’s fourth-biggest internet provider.
Aussie Broadband said on Monday that it had made a cash and stock offer for Symbio via a scheme of arrangement after completing almost a month of due diligence.
Aussie Broadband managing director Phillip Britt has swooped in on Symbio.
The offer is open for acceptance by Symbio’s board until midnight on Tuesday. Symbio’s board said it was considering the offer.
The formal offer from Aussie Broadband comes after rival Superloop, which made an initial offer for Symbio in early August and another bid in September that included $1.42 a share in cash, walked away.
Both Aussie Broadband and Superloop want to expand their communications businesses to compete more aggressively with market leaders Telstra, TPG Telecom, Optus and Vocus.
Symbio is considered to be a pioneer of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) in Australia, which is technology that enables people to make voice calls over the internet rather than using traditional telephone lines.
Symbio provides phone numbers and routes voice calls for big technology companies including Zoom, Google, Twilio and Cisco, and telecoms companies such as Vodafone and Orange.
The phone numbers can be used by people dialling into Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings as an alternative to clicking on a web link.
Aussie Broadband already provides VoIP services but wants to expand further into voice communications. It has also been snapping up internet broadband subscribers, edging past Vocus in the past few months to become the nation’s fourth-biggest provider of connection services, with more
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