A new bidding group has emerged in the upcoming contest to buy the bulk of a $2bn Australian telecoms towers portfolio from Singtel’s Optus, comprising a private equity firm, a pension fund and a sovereign wealth fund.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is understood to have linked up with the Queensland Investment Corp and Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which is considered a serious player when it comes to auctions for major infrastructure assets in Australia.
DataRoom understands that investment bank Citi is working with the consortium.
Parties are lining up to buy the towers, which are expected to come up for sale shortly through Bank of America as the Temasek-backed Singtel looks to sell down its Optus towers to help fund the roll out of its 5G network.
The Optus tower sales process is likely to get underway shortly before Telstra launches a sale of its $1bn-plus Australian tower portfolio through Macquarie Capital around August. It has been on the cards for at least a year and most expect 70 per cent of the portfolio to be on offer.
The KKR group is going head to head with Stilmark, backed by Canada-based OMERS Infrastructure and ATN International, with that group advised by Royal Bank of Canada and Q Advisors.
Stilmark is a local telecoms towers company that counts a raft of high-profile executives among its backers, including former Telstra boss David Thodey, outgoing Stockland chief executive Mark Steinert, former BCA chair Graham Bradley, the Liberman family and former Vodafone Hutchison Australia boss Nigel Dews.
The Crown Castle business Axicom, owned by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, is also believed to be interested and is working with Credit Suisse and Macquarie Capital, while Morrison & Co and the Future Fund are being advised by UBS.
Lendlease is also understood to be lining up with help from adviser Morgan Stanley.
Other groups expected to compete for the assets are industry players such as Digital Colony, American Towers and Spanish telecoms infrastructure owner Cellnex, while Edotco in Asia could be in the mix.
Temasek, which has about $300bn of assets under management, is owned by the Singapore government, and while it is selling some assets in Australia through Singtel, it is also on the acquisition trail.
Its real estate development company Mapletree is said to be well placed to buy Blackstone’s $3.5bn Australian industrial property portfolio, shaping as one of the front runners along with ESR and Logos Property in the final stages. Other parties shortlisted are Dexus and AXA Investment.
Temasek has also pledged $US500m of investment funding to Andy Kuper’s LeapFrog Investments’ fund of which David Gonski is a backer.
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