Aussie Broadband offers premium for Symbio takeover

Aussie Broadband offers a 10.5 per cent premium over Superloop in a bid to acquire listed telco software provider Symbio.

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Shares in software group Symbio rose as much as 17 per cent on Monday following an upgraded takeover offer from Aussie Broadband, in which the suitor offered a 10 per cent premium to outbid a competitor.

The $270.9m bid, announced late on Friday, implied a value of $3.15 per Symbio share, including $2.36 in cash and 0.192 shares.

Investors took heart at the development, with Symbio shares closing up 15 per cent at $3.04 each, following an intraday peak of $3.11.

The latest takeover offer arrives after rival bidder Superloop has lost ground in race, with its offer of $2.85 per share, first put forward in two months ago, falling about 10.5 per cent short of Aussie Broadband’s offer.

Superloop, founded by Bevan Slattery — who is also behind data centre giant NextDC — initially announced its intention to acquire Symbio on August 1, at the time offering a 19.7 per cent premium to Symbio’s closing share price of $2.38 on July 31.

Superloop’s board at the time said the acquisition would allow the company to become “a larger and more complete telecommunications company across data, voice and messaging services”.

Chief executive Paul Tyler told shareholders that Superloop and Symbio currently had an excellent working relationship and that “the combination of Superloop and Symbio would create a strong and attractive telecommunications business”.

On September 21, the company presented its best and final share offer of a 50/50 split of cash and scrip proposes cash consideration of $1.425 plus 2.14 Superloop shares per Symbio share.

On Monday, Superloop confirmed that offer had lapsed while Aussie Broadband said it had entered into a three-week exclusivity and process deed in which “no-shop, no-talk and notification requirements” was required.

“The Symbio Board has advised Aussie Broadband that it has considered the Indicative Proposal and it intends to pursue the Indicative Proposal and recommend it to shareholders subject to entering into binding documentation,” a statement from Aussie Broadband read.

Aussie Broadband, which was founded in 2008, is based in Morwell in the Gippsland region of Victoria.

The company reported an annual net profit of $21.7 in the last financial year, with a revenue of $788m, about two thirds of which came from hardware.

It is targeting EBITDA in the 2024 financial year of between $100m-$110m, representing growth of between 12 to 23 per cent.

Meanwhile on Monday, shares in Aussie Broadband closed edged down 0.7 per cent to $4.08, while Superloop rose 0.8 per cent to 67c.