Bowen's Uniti snaps up fibre company, readies $100m raising

Sarah Thompson and Anthony Macdonald

Aug 15, 2019 — 9.34pm

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The second coming of telecommunications bigwig Vaughan Bowen is about to hit a high note.

It is understood the M2 Group founder and small cap fundie favourite is set to lead his new plaything, Uniti Wireless, out of the microcap wilderness and into a new promised land.

And Bowen will ask the same fundies that backed him to make a motza at M2 to bankroll the journey. [To recap, Bowen helped take M2 from a $14.4 million ankle biter to $2.3 billion takeover target in about a decade, ending in February 2016.]

Former M2 Group boss Vaughan Bowen is making a splash at his new employer, Uniti Wireless. Arsineh Houspian

It is understood Bowen's Uniti has agreed a deal to buy privately-owned broadband networks builder LBNCo.

LBNCo has operated for more than 10-years and markets itself as the country's first fibre to the home operator, installing broadband access networks to more than 70,000 homes and businesses.

LBNCo is backed by an investment fund run by Sydney asset manager ROC Partners and its investors include First State Super, family offices, high net worth investors and some of the company's management team. The investor group only bought in this time last year.

Uniti is expected to seek to raise $100 million in fresh equity to fund the deal.

Bell Potter Securities has already lined up a bunch of funds to cornerstone the raising, which will be done via a rights issue and placement of new shares. It is expected to launch as early as Friday.

Interestingly, it comes as the same types of funds await the listing of a similar business, broadband network builder OptiComm, which raised $43.5 million to list on the ASX on August 22.

The deal comes after months of speculation among fundies and telco executives about where Bowen and his right hand man, former M2 and Vocus executive Michael Simmons, would take Uniti.

That expectation alone has seen Uniti's shares jump from about 20¢ each when Bowen joined the group in March, to close at $1.38 on Thursday.

In recent months, Uniti has made a handful of acquisitions and even raised $15 million via Bell Potter in May to fund its initial buying spree. The last raising was done at $1 a share.