Australia’s Financial Review first reported earlier today that Singtel was in advanced talks with Canadian private equity firm Brookfield to sell the Australian business for $16 billion.
Singtel have since contested this claim, stating in a regulatory filing to the Singapore Stock Exchange that “there is no impending deal to offload Optus for the said sum, as reported”.
“That said, we regularly conduct strategic reviews of our portfolio to optimise the value of our assets and businesses and will explore all options to maximise shareholder value,” the statement went on to say.
Following the release of this filing, Reuters reported that its own source with direct knowledge of the matter said Singtel is indeed looking to sell a “significant stake” in Optus to Brookfield.
Optus has been at the centre of public scrutiny in Australia for 18 months after a significant cyber-attack in September 2022 and a 12-hour network outage in November 2023.
The latter led to CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin’s departure from the company just weeks later. Over the weekend, Optus also parted ways with its head of network Lambo Kanagaratnam.
“Optus remains an integral and strategic part of the Singtel Group and we are committed to Australia for the long term. Our current focus has been on improving network resilience and conducting a CEO search,” the group said in the regulatory filing.
Singtel shares jumped 4% today on the back of the Financial Review report until Singtel requested a halt in trading.
