from foolMarket pundits are watching the Uniti share price closely today as reports have surfaced a competing bid might be on the table.
Telecommunications provider Vocus Group is understood to be working on a counter bid following the $3.06 billion proposal laid down this week, The Australian reports.
Vocus is owned by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets plus Aware Super – who purchased the telco for $3.5 billion in 2021 – and will therefore likely have a huge cash trigger at its disposal. It provides telecommunication services across Australia and New Zealand.
The group will be up against Morrison & Co.’s enormous $20 billion asset base, which is comprised of sovereign wealth funds and real infrastructure assets.
Morrison & Co. had offered $4.50 per Uniti share in its proposal, an approximate 14% premium to its closing price on Wednesday.
Vocus will therefore need to outbid this offer in order to be taken seriously, seeing as the current bid has the front row seats to examine Uniti’s books until the end of April.
The Australian also reports that some Uniti investors reckon the asset manager’s offer is too low, and that a Vocus deal would offer more ‘unity’, so to speak.
“Yet there are Uniti investors that say that Morrison’s offer of $4.50 per share is not enough for the group and they believe only at $5 does it start to get interesting,” The Australian wrote.
“They argue Vocus would be able to extract more synergies than Morrison or any other pure financial buyer”.
It remains to be seen what the group’s next move might be in relation to a potential Uniti bid. However, if it were up at $5 per share, that represents a 26% premium to Uniti’s closing price on Wednesday.
