The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Elliott hopes that Cross and Tume "would provide a fresh perspective to the current challenges Telecom face" saying that: "Both...have considerable strengths in the finance and investment industry, strong commercial and strategic acumen and unique skills that will provide extra depth and new ideas for Telecom. Their expertise in financial strategy will be of particular value to the board."
Tume, according to Elliott, is "an experienced director with a banking and funds management background," and Cross "has a global financial markets background specialising in utilities." Elliott says the candidates have agreed to stand on the basis that, if elected, they will be independent and will represent the interests of Telecom and all of its shareholders. It believes that their understanding of investor needs "will create a cooperative and energetic environment between the Board and its shareholders."
Elliot International is a division of Elliott Associates, founded in 1977. It claims to be one of the oldest private investment firms in the USA under continuous management; to have "a history of working with management teams, regulatory bodies and shareholder groups to deal with complex issues and achieve mutually beneficial results" and to have been "involved in both regulatory processes and corporate restructurings related to telecommunications companies around the world."
The firm was founded by, and is still run by, Paul Singer. It and he have a reputation as "activist investors". According to a 2005 profile in IFR "Elliott Associates is an unusual hedge fund. Its preference for process-driven situations and willingness to dig into its own pockets to fight for investor rights make it stand out from the crowd."
Singer's strategies, however have not made him popular. According to a Bloomberg Markets profile in February 2008, "Singer's principal investing strategy is to buy distressed debt at a discount and then demand full payment, going to court to collect if necessary. He also purchases stock in companies slated for acquisition and demands a higher price. His techniques have pitted him against organisations from Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co to the governments of Argentina and the Republic of Congo. Singer has repeatedly been labelled a 'vulture investor' by the emerging market countries whose bonds he has bought and by development organisations such as Oxfam International that back forgiveness of poor countries' debt."
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
