Recently, Telstra has agreed to sell a major stake, around 70% of their Sensis business to a private equity firm in the US. However, Telstra stated that it will still retain the full ownership of the remaining 30%. The total price will be around AU$ 454 million, which is low considering some market analysts were expecting value at around the AU$ 3 billion.
Telstra has stated that they will continue to product the White Pages directory, as required under Telstra’s carrier licence.
Federal Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull said that the Government is reconsidering if this requirement should still be in place. We could see the Government scrap this regulation and then Sensis/ Telstra will no longer have to print off White Page Directories and focus solely on their online directories.
Some market analysts have speculated that back in 2005, Sensis was worth around AU$ 10 billion.