Australia's Uniti agrees to $2.7 bln takeover offer from Brookfield, Morrison & Co (updated)

Uniti (Delaware)

14/04/2022 24:50

(Adds deal details, background)
    April 14 (Reuters) - Uniti Group  UWL.AX  has agreed to a
nearly A$3.62 billion ($2.70 billion) takeover offer by a unit
of Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc  BAMa.TO  and fund
manager Morrison & Co, the Australian telecom firm said on
Thursday. 
    Under the deal, Uniti shareholders will receive A$5.0 for
each share, representing a premium of 58.7% to the stock's
closing price on March 14, a day before the telecom firm
received an initial A$4.50 per share offer from the
Morrison-Brookfield consortium.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2VV4HJ
    Uniti's board unanimously recommended that its shareholders 
vote in favour of proposal from the Morrison-Brookfield
consortium. 
    The Australian firm was also subject to interest from
Macquarie Group's  MQG.AX  asset management arm and Canada's
Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which had also announced
a A$5 per share bid to buy Uniti last month. 
    Macquarie did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. 
         
     ($1 = 1.3428 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Harish Sridharan in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay
Dwivedi and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
 ((Harish.Sridharan@thomsonreuters.com;))