Sensis’ Tall Order

Sensis, Australia’s leading Yellow Pages publisher and diversified media company, has a tall order to nearly double revenues by 2010. A Goldman Sachs analyst suggested that only through acquisitions could Sensis reach its goal. The key question is, what properties make sense for Sensis? Andrew Day’s management team scoured the globe for logical acquisition targets — with little to show. We doubt that an aggressive acquisition strategy will deliver any meaningful synergies and hence will be difficult to rationalize. Where does that leave Sensis? We suspect it puts added pressure on Telstra to consider putting Sensis on the block. With buckets of private equity money needing a good home, Sensis could prove to be a very desirable target.