I've been doing some more prep...
The other company that owns 50% of Vodafone New Zealand is "BIF IV ICN HOLDINGS PTE. LTD." incorporated in Singapore. It stands for Brookfield Infrastructure Fund 4 (IV is roman numerals). I don't know what ICN means - I think it just means Infratil and CHAN, who was one of the directors of Brookfield that formed the joint venture. There's no other mention of ICN anywhere so it has to be that.
I couldn't find any recently formed holding companies on the Singapore companies website. You have to pay to get the data. What's interesting is that "Infratil HC" only has 1 share allocated. Are they planning on bidding just by themselves or going halves with Brookfields again?
What we do know about Brookfields is that they have raised $20 billion in capital this year and still have another 60% left to allocate. Here's a recent investor presentation:
BROOKFIELD INVESTOR DAY PRESENTATION 24TH STEPTEMBER 2020
Quote from page 39: "our focus will be on acquiring software/software-like services that resemble utilities"
https://i.imgur.com/8Gb8VJh.jpg
INVESTOR DAY TRANSCRIPT
Snippet from page 10": "data infrastructure will represent a more significant portion of our capital deployment going forward...with the replacement of obsolete copper and the investment info fiber optics and new satellite systems, we are clearly in a unique 100 year data investment upgrade."
https://i.imgur.com/bnoxQ13.jpg
One thing for sure is that Brookfield is very much aligned with Infratil in terms of their investment philosophy. The shift to data infrastructure as a long term investment is a common theme between these two. It seems likely they will continue to work together in the future.
The real question is, does Sky qualify as a "data infrastructure" company. If so, then yes, it seems likely that Brookfields will be interested in buying them. You could argue that Sky's shift towards streaming and it's recent satellite deal with Optus for the next 10 years qualifies them a data infrastructure company.
The bottom line is that the money is there. Infratil and Brookfield are both cashed up and are looking for acquisitions. If they do make a bid for Sky, it better be a decent bid and not some crappy low ball offer that wastes everyone's time.