International News

(Telecompaper) Telecom New Zealand will sell the consumer division of Australian unit AAPT to Australian ISP iiNet for AUD 60 million. The transaction is subject to iiNet shareholder and customary regulatory approvals. Telecom currently estimates the transaction will have a net negative impact on AAPT's FY 2011 EBITDA of around AUD 10 million. Telecom also announced that is has sold its 18.2 percent stake in iiNet to institutional and sophisticated investors for approximately AUD 70 million. The carrying value of this investment was AUD 81 million at 30 June. Furthermore, the company sold its stake in Australian business communications services provider Macquarie Telecom for AUD 9.9 million. The carrying value of this investment was AUD 9.5 million at 30 June. When combined, the proceeds from the sale of Telecom's 10.1 percent stake in Macquarie Telecom, the sale of AAPT's consumer division and sale of the 18.2 percent stake iiNet will generate approximately AUD 140 million of sale proceeds for Telecom. AAPT will now focus all its effort on leveraging its tier 1 network infrastructure to deliver voice, data and internet solutions to the wholesale and business market. With the sale, iiNet will gain around 113,000 broadband subscribers and over 251,000 other active services to bring iiNet's broadband subscribers to more than 652,000 and total active services to more than 1.33 million.