Difficulties in Value Creation: Telecom New Zealand's Acquisition of Aapt Ltd.

Abstract

I provide an overview of the Australian and New Zealand telecommunications markets through Telecom New Zealand’s (TCNZ) acquisition of AAPT Ltd in 2000 which amounted to more than NZ$2 billion. Few years later and after writing off approximately NZ$1 billion, TCNZ is considering a sell-off at a considerable loss. I discuss the strategic reasons behind the acquisition and explain how smaller telcos are struggling to compete with the incumbent telecom in Australia. I further conduct an event study to assess the impact of the acquisition on both TCNZ’s and AAPT’s share prices and look at some of the post-acquisition issues. I finally provide a valuation analysis on the AAPT business.