Last year, the company raised $950 million by selling most of its mobile tower and infrastructure network, and management has since declared it was looking at other possibilities.

Telco infrastructure assets are particularly hot and fashionable right now, so timing-wise it’s easy to see why TPG is striding down the catwalk.

Despite Vodafone’s ambitious deals over the years, it has remained a very distinct third in the mobiles market. It needs capital to invest in mobile spectrum if it is to have any chance of chasing down Optus.

The most recent of its attempts to improve mobile market share was a deal allowing its use of Telstra’s towers in regional Australia, which was knocked back this year by the Australian Competition Tribunal.

The TPG-Vocus deal has yet to be cemented, and will also need to go through the competition regulator’s hoops.

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This time, it will be Vocus that will need to convince the regulator that adding more to its wholesale infrastructure assets doesn’t lessen competition in particular parts of this market. Vocus wants to bulk up, so it can compete more effectively for business and government customers with market leaders Telstra and Optus.

Thus, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has some weighing up to do.

Will the positive prospect of Vodafone becoming a stronger player in the mobiles market outweigh Vocus gaining too much power in the wholesale and government infrastructure ownership?

TPG investors will certainly be hoping the proposed deal gets a regulatory tick. Since the 2020 merger was completed, the company’s shares have woefully underperformed, down 36 per cent compared with the S&P/ASX200, which is up 22 per cent over the same period.

On news of the proposed asset sale to Vocus, TPG’s shares jumped 13 per cent.

TPG’s chief executive Inaki Berroeta, a Vodafone alumnus who retained the top job after the merger, seems to be a proponent of Samuel Beckett’s mantra “Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better”.

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