TPG a no-show, court approves Amcom-Vocus merger

The Federal Court on Tuesday approved Vocus' acquisition of Perth solutions provider Amcom.

Amcom announced that it would lodge the court orders with ASIC today, which would make the merger legally effective. The ASX will then be asked to put Amcom shares in a trading halt from the close of business today.

The post-merger Vocus shares will start trading on the ASX on 9 July under a new ticker code, VOCN.

Amcom had fought a long battle against minor shareholder TPG. The telco attempted to scuttle the Vocus buyout by increasing its ownership to almost 20 percent in late April, prompting Vocus chief executive James Spenceley to label TPG's behaviour "disgusting" at the time.

In response, Vocus last month relinquished its 10 percent stake in Amcom to allow maximum potential votes in favour of the acquisition, as it could not vote for its own proposal.

Last week, the other shareholders passed the merger, with 77.2 percent of the vote. The shareholders' meeting has been postponed twice during the back-and-forth between TPG and Vocus.

Amcom had expected TPG to present its case yesterday to the Federal Court that the votes representing Vocus' former 10 percent were tainted and should be excluded from the count. However, sister publication iTnews reported that TPG did not show up to the hearing.