Pacnet confirms AAPT interest

Telecom's AAPT is Australia's number 3 telco. Bought for $2.2 billion at the height of the dotcom boom in 1999, a series of writedowns has seen its value fall to $270m

Hong Kong telco Pacnet's chief executive Bill Barney says the company is interested in buying Telecom's Australian subsidiary AAPT.

Speculation about the future of AAPT has been swirling since a report last week that Pacnet had bid as much as US$420 million ($781 million).

Barney told the Sydney Morning Herald that Pacnet was interested in buying AAPT because of its network infrastructure in Australia's largest cities.

"We have an interest in a lot of assets in Australia and we are talking to just about everybody," Mr Barney said.

He declined to say whether Pacnet had approached Telecom in recent weeks, but he did say it was not talking to the company "at this time".

"AAPT is an option but not the only option."

Telecom declined to comment on the "speculation", but insisted it was committed to AAPT.

- NZPA