SP Telemedia (Soul) to merge with TPG

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 07 February 2008 11:21

IT Industry - Deals

It sold TV station NBN Television for $250 million in mid 2007 saying that it intended to focus solely on its telecommunications business. When it announced its results for the year, CEO Michael Simmons said: "With a strong balance sheet and cash flow, the company is well placed to take advantage of growth opportunities, including any further consolidation of the industry." He had been saying similar things for the past two years.

Mosloadposition stuart}Thanks to its acquisition of the former Comindico network (which cost $400m and for which it paid just $27 million), Soul claims to be the only operator other than Telstra with the ability to inter-connect at all Telstra exchanges; the only operator other than Telstra with a distributed core switching capability; the largest operator of MPLS based IP networks; the only operator with interconnect at all Telstra 66 call collection areas for voice and data.

 When it rebranded as Soul in late 2005, Simmons said: "We have all the essential network infrastructure to deliver multimedia services: any type of service can now be carried as packets on our network. What we did not have was a brand that was recognised in the market. Now we do. What we need now is customers. We need to be like an Optus or a Telstra."

TPG's FY2008 revenue is forecast to be $144 million, with EBITDA of $49 million and after-tax profit of $29 million. Before amortisation and synergies, the combined group, including four months' contribution from TPG, is expected to achieve revenue of $469 million, with EBITDA of $52 million and after-tax profit of $20 million for FY2008.

For FY2009, revenue is expected to be $607 million, with EBITDA of $108 million and after-tax profit of $48 million, also before amortisation and synergies. These figures do not include contributions by Chariot.