Good evening,

It’s half-time in the deal’s year, and time for a bit of reflection.

It’s been a year of M&A thrills and spills - AGL Energy, Brambles, Appen, Humm, and plenty more we never got wind of - and a cold winter in equity capital markets.

The wildest ride inside investment banks has been in cash equities. The market’s dominated news flow and deal flow, and we look at what the top equities desk bosses are saying about the year to date and outlook in Street Talk tonight.

Elsewhere, we try to get inside Brookfield’s head as it gets back inside AGL Energy’s at a seminal point in the company’s history.

AGL Energy blew the whistle on Brookfield’s sneaky 2.5 per cent stake on Thursday, but the more we think about it, the more we reckon AGL did what Brookfield wanted. The Canadian was hiding in plain sight, and is all of a sudden back in the discussion.

Finally, we got wind of Andrew Forrest’s attempted raid on Regis Resources. It was not clear whether stockbroker Barrenjoey had secured the 15 per cent stake when we went to print on Thursday night.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood

Street Talk Editors