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Uniti Group has accused Opticomm of breaching its legal obligations concerning its proposed acquisition amid a heated bidding war between the former and Aware Super.
The disgruntled broadband specialist sent a letter to Opticomm on 12 October after the super fund threw down another offer that outbid Uniti by roughly $68-million.
According to publicly listed Opticomm, the letter accused the fibre-optic network builder of breaching its two scheme implementation deeds with Uniti, having made an initial offer of $507 million in June.
In a notice to shareholders, Opticomm said it “rejects all of the concerns raised by Uniti” and said it has replied with its own “vigorous” disputation of the latter’s claims.
“OptiComm advises that as announced yesterday, OptiComm has commenced and is continuing with the matching rights process under the Amended and Restated SID,” it said.
“Under this process Uniti has the right, but not the obligation, to submit a counter proposal for the OptiComm Board to consider at any time prior to 10am on Thursday, 15 October 2020.”
Despite Aware’s higher offer, Opticomm added that it still would continue to recommend Uniti’s SID to shareholders.
The tussle with Opticomm comes a year after Uniti faced another turbulent acquisition attempt, when the Adelaide-based company attempted to buy Spirit Telecom.
However, Spirit subsequently rejected the bid and instead went on its own acquisition spree.
Uniti is also facing scrutiny from Australia’s competition watchdog, which is calling for industry feedback on the proposed joint separation of the company.
