TPG Capital may team up with Vocus founder James Spenceley to examine a takeover of the communications company in the event that the equity firm's bid for Fairfax Media does not come off.
The Australian reported that Vocus was high on TPG Capital's agenda. Spenceley left Vocus in October after a boardroom stoush to oust chief executive Geoff Horth did not succeed.
The report comes in the wake of conflicting statements about the $2.2 billion bid for Vocus by the American equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
On the one hand, a Vocus spokesperson said that the KKR bid had not been turned down. This came after a published report that Horth had said the bid would be rejected.
{loadposition sam08}The Australian said other buyout firms had looked at Vocus as a takeover target. These included Bain Capital, Apollo, The Carlyle Group and Blackstone.
The KKR bid, made on 7 June, came after a bad period for Vocus, Australia's fourth largest telecommunications outfit, with share prices having gone south since August last year.
The bid valued the shares at $3.50 each; the value of the company came to $2.2 billion and including debt that rose to $3.3 billion.
In the last nine months, Vocus has lost almost 70% of its value as it struggles to incorporate a number of acquisitions, most recently the $807 million purchase of Nextgen.
Vocus provides telco, data, cloud and energy services through its Commander, Dodo and iPrimus brands. It also owns Nextgen Networks which it acquired i October 2016.