Morrison & Co is seeking to take over Adelaide-based broadband services and fibre company Uniti Group for A$3.05bn (€2bn).
Uniti, which halted trading on Tuesday, has confirmed that it has entered into exclusive discussions with the infrastructure fund manager.
Morrison & Co made an indicative offer of A$4.50 per share for Uniti, which builds telecommunications networks and sells broadband and voice services, focusing mostly on the residential apartment market.
The global infrastructure manager has secured rights for exclusive negotiations until April 22, and Uniti said it would update the market if this date changed.
Uniti said Morrison made the approach on March 13 by way of an offer letter and that a data room was now open for due diligence from March 18.
“The Board notes that it is uncertain the indicative proposal will result in an offer to Uniti shareholders,” the company said.
The takeover attempt comes 18 months after Uniti entered a bidding war with Aware Super to acquire broadband cables provider Opticomm, which it eventually acquired for around A$700m in November 2020.
