Vocus prepares $6 billion debt deal to bankroll TPG fibre tilt
Vocus Group, owned by Macquarie and Aware Super, has kicked off talks to put together a debt syndicate for its $6.3 billion bid to carve out ASX-listed TPG Telecom’s fibre assets.
TPG Telecom boss Inaki Berroeta. Louie Douvis
Street Talk understands Vocus’ bid advisers, Macquarie Capital and UBS, are lead arrangers on the debt deal. To round off the syndicate, Vocus is expected to mandate at least five banks.
It is seeking circa $6 billion in debt financing, with the deal aiming to bundle together the takeover funding and a refinancing of Vocus’ existing debt.
Sources said talks are centred around floating-rate debt denominated in Australian dollars at about a 250bps to 300bps spread over the bank bill swap rate.
Should it be successful, it would be 2023’s biggest corporate debt deal after data centre business AirTrunk’s $4.6 billion refinancing in August.
Preparations for the debt funding signal Vocus is still in hot pursuit of TPG’s fibre assets, though exclusivityran out on October 4.
The bid, revealed by Street Talk on August 1, includes TPG’s enterprise, government and wholesale business and associated fixed infrastructure assets, including Vision Network. That’s about 27,000 kilometres of fibre, most of which is in metropolitan areas. Together, the assets generated roughly $550 million EBITDA.
Vocus was granted five weeks of exclusive due diligence to stand up its $6.3 billion non-binding indicative bid, which wasextended by another four weeks to end on October 4. While Vocus did not return with a binding bid, the two camps kept talks alive without extending due diligence.
It is one of the first fibre asset spin-offs from an Australian telco, and follows a wave of tower sales and leasebacks that started in
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