The competition watchdog now looks almost certain to provide the green light for an $8.8bn merger between Sigma and pharmacy giant Chemist Warehouse, subject to some easily met conditions, in what will no doubt be a big relief to the mastermind behind the deal, David Di Pilla.
Just how willing the ACCC appears to be to grant approval came as a surprise to Sigma shareholders, as the share price soared more than 22 per cent higher on the news, taking market value to $2.34bn.
It may give Di Pilla more opportunity to focus on building up his data centre business, which he hopes to float on the Australian Securities Exchange.
The understanding is that Di Pilla’s business interests are the last party standing in the contest to buy the iSeek data centres, with Queensland Investment Corporation walking away.
It is believed that while Di Pilla has been comfortable with Amber Infrastructure’s $400m price expectations, his challenge has been raising the funds to pay for a transaction.
Yet all going well with the back door listing plan of Chemist Warehouse into Sigma, this could help.
The former UBS banker turned HMC Capital chief executive purchased a major stake in Sigma and was said to have played a pivotal role in stitching together Chemist Warehouse and Sigma.
The opportunity on the data centre front is to put the iSeek business together with the $1bn Fujitsu data centres in Australia, which are also for sale, and gain synergies.
Demand for data centres, which are needed to power AI, is strong after Blackstone paid $24bn for industry giant Airtrunk.
Change of plan
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Vocus already carried out most of the due diligence.
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