Superloop completes the acquisition of Exetel

Set to double revenue, triple customers, monetise Superloop's high-speed internet network, boost growth in business and consumer segments.

Brisbane - 2 August 2021 - Superloop has completed the acquisition of Exetel, Australia's largest independent internet service provider.

The acquisition of Exetel’s 110,000+ consumer and business customers significantly grows Superloop’s scale, service capability and product set as a major provider of fibre-first, high-speed connectivity infrastructure and services in the Australian market.

The acquisition accelerates the uptake and utilisation of Superloop's infrastructure assets. Separately, Superloop is investing in additional levels of resilience for its network around Australia. This includes adding diverse, dual homed fibre connections to a majority of the 121 nbn Points of interconnection (POIs) around Australia, including to regional towns that include Cairns in far north Queensland, and Geraldton in northern Western Australia.

As originally announced in June 2021, the acquisition of Exetel is expected to realise cost synergies of at least $5 million annual run rate within the first 12 months. The company expects this to reduce Superloop’s debt ratio significantly through improved EBITDA, operational synergies, and increasing spend per customer via an improved and broader product offering.

Superloop’s Managing Director and CEO, Paul Tyler said, "Firstly I am excited to welcome all of our new colleagues and customers to Superloop. This acquisition has so far exceeded our expectations, and for that I would like to thank both teams.

“In particular, we expect the benefits from the synergies around network, systems and other areas to flow faster into our operations, which will contribute to this being a transformational deal for Superloop.

"We also expect to bring Exetel's customers onto our nbn high-speed network under the Exetel brand much faster than anticipated. This will enable the launch of nbn high-speed plans under the Exetel brand much more rapidly than we had originally planned. Over the past two years, the market has moved further towards high-speed tier plans. Exetel had not been able to take advantage of this with their previous wholesale partners. Now they can, with Superloop's high-speed network and nbn connectivity.

“As I said in June when we announced the acquisition, this brings together the high capacity infrastructure that Superloop has built over the past six years, to meet continuing and growing demand for fast, reliable Internet services that are easy and quick to access. We will now introduce super-fast, super-easy and super-reliable connectivity to three times more Australian homes and businesses."

Under the Sale Purchase Agreement, Superloop agreed to pay A$110 million (excluding estimated completion adjustments in respect of the assumption of certain liabilities), comprising A$100 million in cash and A$10 million in Superloop shares. The acquisition was primarily funded by a capital raise comprising a fullyunderwritten institutional placement and a pro-rata accelerated nonrenounceable entitlement offer.