Vocus and M2 have announced their intention to merge which will make the combined entity the fourth largest telco in Australia worth more than $3 billion. Here are the details.
Puzzle picture from Shutterstock
This merger still has to go through shareholder and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approvals but if it does go ahead, the joint Vocus-M2 company would be a force to be reckoned with in the telco market. The teclo industry has undergone a crazy amount of consolidation in recently years. iiNet was the latest victim, having been swallowed up by TPG. The deal was only cleared by the ACCC last month and now the three biggest telcos in Australia are Telstra, Optus, and TPG.
But the Vocus-M2 entity won’t just be playing in the telco space. It will have a diverse portfolio which includes:
- Retail internet
- Retail electricity and gas
- Corporate internet and IP voice
- Wholesale internet and IP voice
- Datacentre and cloud services
- International and domestic bandwidth
- Dark fibre
The company will have a combined revenue of $1.8 billion before tax and that’s even before they work out where to cut the fat. M2 CEO, Geoff Horth, will be the CEO of the merged group.
If everything is smooth sailing for this merger, the other telcos would face stiff competition. Vocus is a big player in providing telecommunication services to corporate customers while M2 has a solid presence in the SMB and consumer space. By their powers combined, this Vocus-M2 group will put much needed pressure on the top three telcos to provide better services at a reasonable cost.
Stay tuned for updates on how he merger goes.
Comments
4 responses to “Vocus And M2 Merger Will Create Australia’s Fourth Largest Telco”
I like that the picture for the article is two people trying to jam a corner piece into a middle piece. I assume because it’s a stock image that’s a mistake and not a subtle joke at the merger.
Of course you’re assuming the overall shape of the puzzle is square or rectangular.
Ironically, I looked at the image and thought, someone is about to get f*cked in this merger..
The problem with this headline is that M2 is already Australia’s 4th largest Telco.
The most interesting thing about this story is that it was Vocus (the smaller company) that acquired M2 (the larger company with a long history of acquiring companies) to create this “Merger” not the other way around.