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David Teoh Vodafone NZ may get a call from Australian billionaire David Teoh
OPINION: Earlier this year, senior executives from Australia's TPG Telecom were spotted in Auckland, with the reclusive billionaire David Teoh believed to have been preparing the ground for his latest deal.
The obvious target would be Vodafone New Zealand, which bought Telstra's largely fixed line internet business, TelstraClear, for NZ$840 million in 2012.
But what if there was much more to it than that? One wild theory doing the rounds is that TPG, capitalised at close to A$9.2 billion ($10.3 billion), could be interested in Vodafone's entire operations in this part of the world. It is not as ludicrous as it might sound.
Consider the following: Vodafone's CEO, Vittorio Colao, admitted a couple of years ago that its operations in this part of the world were, in principle, non core. The company sold its entire 49 per cent stake in its Fiji business to that country's government in 2014, for example.
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It was widely rumoured to have put its Australian and New Zealand units up for sale together before the Vodafail episode, of late 2011, when its Australian mobile network almost had a complete meltdown.
Those dark days are well behind Vodafone Australia (a joint venture between the UK parent and Hutchison Telecoms Australia, which in turn is controlled by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa) but it's long been suggested that Vodafone UK has wanted out.
Meanwhile, TPG's relationship with Vodafone has been getting closer. Last year the two companies struck a A$1b deal where TPG would shift thousands of mobile customers on to Vodafone's network and provide the carrier with backhaul services.
This time last year, the highly regarded industry figure Simon Hackett predicted that at some point in 2016, Vodafone Australia would merge or be bought out.
The most likely buyer in his eyes? TPG Telecom