Spaceship tests M&A interest | Brookfield preps for big deal | Next Capital mulls SilverChef options

Good evening,

Kelsian’s finally put the details of its big US bet to investors!

It’s set to pay $US325 million ($487 million) to acquire All Aboard America! or 6.9-times normalised EBITDA for the year to December end. The deal is partly through a $281 million equity raising, split into a $135 million placement and a $143 million rights issue. The offer price was a 10.5 per cent discount to the TERP.

It shows that even though companies can’t be tempted to IPOs or even sell escrow blocks, the equity capital markets are open and functioning for deals that fund managers like.

Over in unlisted land, we spotted Grok and AirTree backed investing start-up Spaceship quietly courting suitors.

Spaceship kicked its series C down the line last year as rates started to inch up, instead doing a small convertibles deal and cost-cutting. That was supposed to have seen it through 2023, but VCs don’t look like they are opening their chequebooks anytime soon.

It would be interesting to see if Spaceship lands a deal or boomerangs back to old faithfuls Grok and AirTree.

Elsewhere, Brookfield was prepping a big debt deal for Healthscope, Next Capital was mulling options for its non-bank lending business SilverChef and TA Associates-backed Honan Insurance Group was furthering its roll-up ambitions.

Lastly, we also spotted two senior infrastructure dealmakers at QIC stepping back.

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