Telstra has confirmed its in talks to acquire Asian operator Pacent. The Australian operator made an announcement to the stock market following a report by Bloomberg that the two companies were close to an agreement. Pacnet’s owners were seeking a valuation of about USD 1 billion including debt, people with knowledge of the sale process said in June.
Telstra has been seeking new acquisitions in growth areas after divesting a number of assets in the past year. Buying Pacnet would give Telstra more than 46,000 kilometers of submarine cable from Asia to the US as well as a network of expanding data centres across east Asia. The stable cash flow from the assets could help offset the loss of fixed network operations sold to the Australian government as part of its NBN project.
