Telstra plans Asian M&A

Telstra Corp (TLS) has indicated an interest in acquiring firms in Asia as part of a strategy to compete against US rivals in Asia, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Given its modest-sized current Asian business, the company sees expansion-by-acquisition as the ideal path to growing its Asian footprint, especially in cloud computing, video conferencing and internet services markets.

“We're very much looking to see how we can drive additional scale through inorganic opportunities, both partnerships and acquisitions,” Telstra Global president Martijn Blanken told the AFR.

“We're looking at both [bolt-on and large-scale acquisitions].”

Sometimes you take your customer by the hand and say 'I provide these services on your premises but ... let's move to the cloud' but if you do not have access to the customers today it's difficult to make the transition.”