For sale: $10m stake in 2degrees
2degrees’ estranged co-founder Tex Edwards has put half his shareholding in the company for sale on Trade Me, with an asking price of $10 million.
The move by the maverick entrepreneur appears designed to highlight his concerns over the regulatory treatment of the company.
Edwards said he had been an investor in 2degrees for 14 years and wanted to ‘‘share the joy of ownership with others’’, adding ‘‘you know me well enough to understand when I have got a sense of humour going’’.
Edwards owns 0.48 per cent of 2degrees meaning the asking price would value the company at more than $4 billion. There have been no bids.
His own financial position was a case of ‘‘refresh, regroup, rebuild’’, he said, adding he had been through a ‘‘devastating experience’’.
Edwards said he was fully supportive of 2degrees and ‘‘continually vocal on those regulatory matters’’.
‘‘Nobody would take more satisfaction when the company moves to financial safe-harbour than myself.’’
He said earlier this year that a review into the regulation of the telecommunications industry after 2020 was crucial. There was a long way to go to end Vodafone and Spark’s duopoly in parts of the mobile market, he said.
Edwards refused an industry award last year for his part in creating 2degrees, in protest at what he viewed as a limp approach to market monitoring and regulation by the Commerce Commission.
Last year he forecast the mobile market would slip back into duopoly within two or three years unless there was a change in regulatory policy.
2degrees and Edwards settled an employment and shareholding dispute in 2012.
In May, 2degrees posted a net loss of $33.6m for the year to December 31, which took its total accumulated losses since the business began to $362m.
However, some analysts have become more upbeat about its prospects.
Australian analyst and former archsceptic Paul Budde said in the wake of the company’s result that while 2degrees still had ‘‘a vulnerable position in the New Zealand market’’, there were positive signs.