Telecommunications services provider Aussie Broadband will turn its attention to a sharemarket float in coming months, after raising fresh funds in a pre-initial public offering raising.

It is understood Aussie Broadband is targeting an ASX listing within six months and has mandated stockbroker Shaw and Partners to help prepare the company and sell the mooted deal.

Shaw and Partners' role comes after it spearheaded a $25 million pre-IPO raising for Aussie Broadband, which saw a bunch of funds jump on to the company's share register. Its new investors are understood to include Perennial Value and Thorney Group.

Aussie Broadband is an internet service provider and the fifth largest national provider of NBN services nationally, trailing household names Telstra, Optus, TPG and Vocus Group.

The company told investors it has more than 157,00 customers as part of the raising and was on track to reach about 184,000 customers by the end of the year.

It expects to record more than $100 million revenue for the year to December 31, which would represent 100 per cent year-on-year growth for the second year running.

Aussie Broadband was founded by Phillip Britt and John Reisinger in 2003.

Funds raised in the pre-IPO round were pegged for marketing initiatives, capital expenditure on the build-out of its fibre network and potential M&A activity.

The mooted listing comes as fund managers take a fresh look at telecommunications services providers, looking for winners and losers from the National Broadband Network roll out.

Fundies reckon Aussie Broadband shapes as one of the few winners to-date, thanks to its low customer acquisition costs. To recap, NBN Co charges retailers like Aussie Broadband a monthly fee to use the network, based on bandwidth, and the retailers recoup that cost and more when they offer the service to customers.

Article source: AFR, 30 September 2019