Soul's sole focus now telecoms

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 01 May 2007 12:51

Opinion and Analysis

Soul has agreed to sell its media assets to PBL Media and says it will focus entirely on its telecommunications business. It has been touting its unique advantages in this market for over two years. Now it is time to deliver.

PBL Media will purchase NBN Television and Soul's outside broadcasting and production operations (trading as One80 Digital Post) for a total of $250 million. Soul says it directors carefully considered all proposals received from interested parties and concluded that the offer from PBL Media was superior and provided the best outcome for all Soul stakeholders, both in terms of value and deliverability.

The offer has the unanimous support of Soul's board and the company's major shareholder, Washington H Soul Pattinson & Company. The company has yet to confirm whether the deal needs shareholder approval.

Following the sale, Soul says it will focus on its "high growth telecommunications operations, multi-media capabilities and media infrastructure assets." These are considerable and, cashed up and freed from the distractions of its media business the company should be well placed to exploit them.

Soul, initially SP Telemedia was effectively a start up business in 2000, a subsidiary of Australia's third oldest listed company, Washington H Soul Pattinson. It began with a focus on marketing regional telecommunications services carried on an IP network originally constructed for the transmission of digital television services for NBN Television (then also owned by its parent).

It listed on the ASX in 2001, with its then parent company offering part of its shareholding to the public, and in the ensuing 18 months integrated the $400 million national IP network of Comindico, which it bought from the receivers for a mere $27 million. It also acquired 42.9 per cent of ASX listed B Digital - which expanded its mobile telephony capability - as well as 100 percent of NBN Television.