M&A Monday is back!! It feels like a deluge of M&A news could land on Monday morning, after bankers and lawyers spent the weekend cooped up trying to get transactions over the line.
The headline act – and one Street Talk followed all weekend – is ANZ Banking Group, which is homing in on a $4.9 billion deal to acquire Suncorp bank.
It would be a big play for ANZ, likely adding another longstanding brand to its stable and another $60 billion or so in loans. It will also be a test of shareholder faith, with the bank looking at a $3.5 billion equity raising to help fund it.
Interestingly, while ANZ had the inside run at Suncorp’s bank, it wasn’t the only suitor. Street Talk also revealed Bendigo and Adelaide Bank made numerous approaches this year, most recently in June.
Bendigo wanted to acquire or merge with Suncorp’s bank to try to create the elusive “fifth pillar” of Australian banking. Suncorp didn’t want to engage in recent weeks, and now Bendigo knows why.
It wouldn’t surprise Street Talk to see updates at Link Group and Ramsay Health Care, both of which are well overdue for some news for shareholders.
Happy reading, Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood Street Talk editors
ANZ Banking Group’s board has pushed back against nervy underwriters, demanding a renounceable entitlement offer for its $3.5 billion equity raising slated to launch on Monday morning.
Food packaging maker BioPak has boxed up its team for a run at the ASX-boards, although will likely have to wait until next year before putting a deal to listed equities investors.
It’s nearly a week - or a lifetime for those involved - since Goldman Sachs took bids for New Zealand retirement savings shop Kiwi Wealth, and the chasing pack are getting restless.
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