Singtel owned Optus had announced at the end of 2020 that they were looking to monetise their 2,312 mobile network towers and rooftop sites.
The towers had attracted interest from Brookfield Asset Management, IFM Investors, American Tower, Symphony Consortium (which consists of Stilmark Holdings, Atlantic Tele-Network International and Canadian pension fund OMERS), QIC, Axicom (Australia’s largest independent towerco) and other Australian investors.
Australian pension fund AustralianSuper will buy a 70% stake in ATN (Australian Tower Network – a wholly owned subsidiary of Optus) in a transaction that values ATN at A$2.3bn (US$1.67m). The valuation represents an extraordinarily impressive EV/EBITDA multiple of 38x.
