Good evening,

Gee, AGL Energy escalated quickly! While we knew it was a big weekend for the utility, we’re not sure anyone thought the fallout would be so big.

Gone is the demerger, as tipped, and so too will be CEO Graeme Hunt and chairman Peter Botten. Two other non-executive directors, Diane Smith-Gander and Jacqueline Hey, also fell on their swords.

It became clear to AGL Energy’s board that they wouldn’t have the votes over the weekend, so there was no point pushing ahead with their proposed demerger.

AGL’s rhetoric turned on a dime. The company went from assuring anyone who asked that it wouldn’t cancel the demerger scheme meeting – “it’s now a court-run process” – to cancelling the vote and half of its board. It’s the sort of clean-out we’re used to seeing at a troubled casino operator, or a bank after a royal commission cock-up, not a 185-year-old utility that hasn’t done anything wrong, other than recommend a deal its shareholders didn’t want to see.

Anyway, it’s a first for Australia in terms of activism, and we look at how Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok did it.

Elsewhere in Street Talk, we’ve caught private equity firms at Sky Network TV, and have a raising that’s found support from Victor Smorgon Partners and some other big names.

Happy reading,
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk editors