Saturn mulls partial flotation with sister

By Richard Braddell

Wellington-based Saturn Communications may be heading towards a partial public float in conjunction with Australian sister company, Austar.

Asked to comment on a rumour that a prospectus was imminent, Saturn's managing director, Jack Matthews, said the company was always exploring its options to raise capital should it expand out of Wellington, although it had money in hand to complete the Wellington network roll-out.

"There are a number of options for Saturn and its affiliates or its sister companies to fund its businesses and if we decide to expand from Wellington, which is still predicated on more clarity in the [regulatory] environment, then that would be one possibility," Mr Matthews said.

Plans to go beyond Wellington were put on hold last year after Telecom was cleared to match Saturn's pricing street by street.

But with the $240 million roll-out nearing completion, customer take-up in line with or better than business plan, and proposed reforms that would meet Saturn's concerns about the regulatory environment, the odds are good that Saturn will continue with a $700 million expansion into Auckland and Christchurch.

But a float would almost certainly involve Austar, which with Saturn is owned by Denver-headquartered United International Holdings.

Austar operates a satellite pay television business not dissimilar to that of Sky in New Zealand and has more than 310,000 subscribers in the Australian regions.

While it lost $US93 million in the first nine months of calendar 1998, its managing director, John Porter, said in March it would not be long before it was trading profitably and foreshadowed a float by the end of the year.

Saturn, which began activating its Wellington network in the middle of last year, has quickly claimed about 24 per cent of the telephone market in the 60,000 to 70,000 homes passed.

Saturn now claims 14,000 residential telephone customers, 600 in business telephone services, 2000 in Internet and 10,000 in cable television. Although the company has been focused on the residential market, it is already rolling out fibre optic cable in Wellington's central business district in conjunction with a gas roll-out by a new supplier to the market, Nova Gas.

While Saturn was entering the business market sooner than planned, the cost savings from sharing with Nova were too good to overlook, Saturn's legal counsellor, Sean Wynne, said.

In floating its Australasian operations, United International would undoubtedly want to repeat the enormously successful float of its European cable business.

After buying out its 50 per cent partner Philips at a bargain basement price, UIH floated a third of UPC for $US1.2 billion. The company now has a market value around $US6 billion.