News - Thursday, July 29, 2010 17:33 - 0 Comments

Telecom NZ sells Macquarie stake

in brief Former Kiwi monopolist Telecom New Zealand has sold its minority stake in Australian telco Macquarie Telecom to an un-named party at a price of AU$9.9 million.

The stake was one of a small handful of investments the telco has made in Australia’s telecommunications market — the largest of which is its buyout of AAPT and its subsequent acquisition of PowerTel.

Telecom also this morning confirmed it was considering strategic options in respect to its AAPT business. The Australian this morning reported that iiNet and TPG Telecom were competing to pick up slices of AAPT, with iiNet this morning going into a trading halt as it prepared to make an announcement to the market about a potential acquisition.

However Telecom also retains other investments in the Australian market — notably an AAPT stake in iiNet, as well as a piece of mobile telco VHA and its Gen-i IT services subsidiary.