Brookfield-Led Group Nears $2.5 Billion Uniti Takeover

(Bloomberg) -- Australian fiber cabling firm Uniti Group Ltd. has agreed to a A$3.62 billion ($2.7 billion) takeover by a consortium led by HRL Morrison & Co. and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.

The Adelaide-based residential broadband provider said Thursday it had agreed to a deal at A$5 per share, which represents a 58.7% premium to its undisturbed trading price on March 14. That’s an improvement from an earlier A$4.50 per share offer from the consortium first tabled in March. The group, MBC BidCo Pty Ltd, also includes pension fund Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, Uniti said.

The deal marks the second-largest transaction targeting an Australian company so far this year, behind Blackstone Inc.’s A$8.9 billion acquisition of casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd. It is also the largest deal for an Australian infrastructure company in 2022 at a time when real-asset sectors are undergoing a wave of takeovers led by yield-hungry pension and sovereign funds.

The agreement follows a bidding war over Uniti that included a rival offer on March 24 from Macquarie Asset Management and PSP Investments also at A$5 each. On the same day, a unit of Brookfield Infrastructure joined Morrison in bidding. On March 29, the Morrison-Brookfield consortium boosted its offer to A$5 per share and entered into exclusive talks with Uniti.

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