The combined might of TPG Telecom and iiNet will create Australia's number two ranked internet services provider with 1.7 million customers and therefore enough heft to take on market leader Telstra and its three million internet customers.
TPG is offering A$8.60 a share for iiNet, a 30 per cent premium to its market price, in a deal that values the company at A$1.4 billion. With the iiNet board recommending the offer, it looks assured.
Teoh will also have to satisfy regulators the deal won't lessen competition in the broadband market, but there's an expectation TPG will be able to mount an argument that the bigger combined company will actually enhance competition by being better placed to take on Telstra.
TPG's strategy has been to own as much cable and fibre as it can so it wouldn't be so reliant on reselling Telstra's services and could pocket a big chunk of the revenue from sales on its own network.
Teoh and wife Vicky are a remarkable success story. They formed Total Peripherals Group after they migrated to Australia in 1986. The business initially imported computer hardware then started offering cut-price broadband and listed on the ASX in 2005.
The company made a string of acquisitions that propelled it into the big league, including the purchase of AAPT from what was then Telecom New Zealand a couple of years ago.
Along the way Teoh has preferred to remain in the shadows and is continuing this form with his latest bid. As executive chairman of TPG, he attended the analysts' conference call on Friday but remained totally silent, leaving other executives to do the talking.
Yet investors are so confident in Teoh's ability to make the acquisition a success - despite not knowing much about him - that TPG shares rose 20 per cent after the deal was announced. The spike is a huge vote of confidence in Teoh's reputation for delivering on his promises; usually a company's share price falls when it announces a takeover because investors get nervous it won't live up to the executives' promises.
The rise in the share price also increased David and Vicky Teoh's wealth to A$2.6 billion.
The softly spoken Teoh has a reputation as a long-term strategic thinker. He is also known for rigorous cost control - it's rumoured that he docks workers' pay if they forget to turn off their computers at the end of the day.
Telstra will lose its phone network to the government-owned National Broadband Company in a few years, as Telecom NZ did a few years ago. Once that happens, internet sales will be all about service and bundles. TPG is well-placed to do this.
The missing piece of the puzzle for TPG is its own mobile phone network. This is an advantage Telstra and Optus (which will slip to number three broadband provider after the takeover) have over TPG. They can offer attractive internet and mobile phone bundles to customers while TPG has to resell third-party mobile offerings. Number three mobile provider Vodafone is the obvious target.
Teoh won't be posing for photos any time soon but he is sure to be planning his next move.
PowerPointless, says Westpac CEOWe all know one - that person in the office who spends their entire day preparing PowerPoint presentations. They aren't actually doing anything productive or creative or displaying any initiative; they are merely importing data from Excel for a pretty graph; dreaming up snappy slide titles; and finding an eye-catching picture for the title page.
Newly-installed Westpac boss Brian Hartzer is so concerned about the problem that he's thinking of banning the ubiquitous meeting tool from the bank.
"I think one of the dangers in large companies is that people start to think that their job is to create PowerPoints, [rather than] to make decisions and improve things for customers," Hartzer told Boss magazine.
With staff spending more time on creating value and on customer service instead of worrying about dot points and font size, the mooted ban can't be a bad thing for shareholders either.
But the real winners will be all those Westpac staff who have to sit through all the PowerPoint presentations. They'll be cheering Hartzer on and willing him to carry out his threat. No word yet on whether the ban might cross the Tasman to Westpac's Kiwi subsidiary.
