A deal would mark a windfall for Singtel, which has lately been grappling with the fallout from the major security incidents. The capital raised could help finance major initiatives such as an expansion into the data centre arena, a market fuelled by a global boom in AI.

The carrier’s revenue slid 5.4 per cent in the December quarter, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 1.8 per cent.

Singtel has also been scrambling to find a new CEO to replace Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who stepped down as part of the fallout of the November network meltdown that affected some 10 million customers and left thousands unable to get through to triple zero emergency services.

The telco said the outage was the result of a routine software upgrade from Singtel, which took its network offline and forced staff to physically reboot services.

Analysts had warned that whoever was appointed Optus’ next CEO would need years to rebuild the telco’s reputation. There had also been calls for Singtel to consider selling its Australian subsidiary following the two high-profile crises in just over a year.