Aussie Broadband’s attempt to secure a court injunction against Superloop over its holding of excess shares has been denied, and the company has confirmed that it has divested those shares.
Superloop announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on 28 March that the Federal Court of Australia had refused to grant an interlocutory injunction on 27 March.
The injunction sought to prevent Superloop from instructing Aussie Broadband to sell approximately 8 percent of its owned shares, in accordance with its constitution.
This decision follows a month-long back-and-forth between the two companies, triggered by Aussie Broadband’s proposed acquisition of Superloop’s business.
In late February, Aussie Broadband submitted a non-binding proposal to acquire all of Superloop’s shares, implying a total value close to $467 million. Concurrently, Aussie Broadband acquired 19.9 percent of Superloop’s shares.
However, under Superloop’s constitution, no individual or group is permitted to own more than 12 percent of shares without prior approval from Singapore’s Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA).
Aussie Broadband did not obtain this permission and was instructed to reduce its stake in the business to below the 11.9 percent threshold.
Then, on 19 March, Aussie initiated legal action in federal court to prevent Superloop from compelling it to decrease its shareholding to 11.9 percent.
Subsequently, Aussie has disclosed that it has disposed of the surplus shares. It announced on 2 April that it had entered into an agreement to sell 37,621,056 Superloop shares on the previous day at a rate of $1.31 per share, amounting to a total of $49.3 million.
According to Aussie Broadband it reached an agreement with an unnamed buyer for nearly 38 million Superloop shares at $1.31 per share leaving the broadband provider with a stake of 11.99 percent in Superloop.
