MELBOURNE, Dec 9 — Malaysian David Teoh’s company, TPG Telecom, has bought Telecom New Zealand’s Australian subsidiary for A$450 million (RM1.3 billion).

TPG beat out iiNet and Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) for the asset, “The Australian” newspaper reported.

The acquisition is a personal win for Teoh, who has missed out on two major deals in the past three years, the newspaper said.

This year, TPG failed in its attempt to buy Leighton Holdings’ extensive portfolio of telecommunications business, including Nextgen Networks, when

OTPP entered an agreement to buy 70 per cent of the assets for about A$620 million.

In 2010, TPG was pipped at the post in the race for Australian Associated Press Telecoms’ (AAPT) consumer arm when iiNet emerged as a surprise late bidder to snare it for A$60 million.

Sources said Teoh was eager not to let AAPT’s wholesale business slip through his fingers like the last two asset sales.

This transaction represents about 6.4 times AAPT’s current recurring annualised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) run-rate of about A$70 million.

The transaction will complete on February 28, 2014.

AAPT owns a significant fibre optic cable network that links various cities and commercial hubs throughout Australia, including 11,000km of inter-state fibre, its own data centres in major capital cities, and fibre access to 1,600 premises.

The AAPT asset is valuable to both TPG and iiNet as it would provide both players with interstate backhaul and broadband transit links that would help them reduce the cost of delivering Internet services. — Bernama