Bain Capital LLC, Carlyle Group LP and Blackstone Group LP are among private equity firms evaluating possible bids for Optus Satellite, they indicated. Optus Satellite currently has five orbiting satellites and provides television, radio, phone, Internet data and military signals to Australia, New Zealand and parts of the Antarctic. SingTel acquired the satellite unit as part of its US$9.69 billion (RM29.46 billion) takeover of Optus, Australia’s second-largest phone company, in 2001.
SingTel is selling the satellite division as it chases new sources of growth amid slowing sales in Australia and Singapore. Divesting the division, which had revenue of A$319 million in the year ended March 2012, would help finance S$2 billion (RM4.8 billion) worth of acquisitions that SingTel is planning to undertake. The company hasn’t reported separate earnings figures for Optus Satellite since the 2001 takeover.
Credit Suisse Group AG and Morgan Stanley, hired by SingTel in March to study options for Optus Satellite, are offering prospective buyers a debt package that may help attract bids, people with knowledge of the matter said this month. The banks may lend more than six times Optus Satellite’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.
Optus Satellite broadcasts signals to more than two million Australian households and companies and will launch a sixth satellite this year, according to SingTel. Customers include state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corp, the Foxtel joint venture between Telstra Corp. and News Corp. and Australia’s Department of Defence. (Source: The New Straits Times Press, Malaysia)
