Good evening,

Woodside’s $1.1 billion block trade via JPMorgan’s equities desk on Wednesday, first reported by Street Talk, was well flagged, not least by the huge volume of WDS stock traded in the run-up to the event.

BHP needed to do the deal because it didn’t want exposure to fossil fuels and recent trading sessions have had ESG investors selling and other investors buying.

The stock will land with institutional investors on Thursday morning, at the same time that another 900 million-odd Woodside shares will flow through to BHP shareholders.

As for JPMorgan, it was the envy of deal-starved equity capital markets teams. The block trade was the biggest equity capital markets deal of the year. JPMorgan was the sole book-runner and underwriter – tapped by BHP – although it was not underwritten, which takes away some prestige in the competitive world of investment banking.

Elsewhere, we reveal that Tim Miles’ Miles Advisory has nabbed another lucrative sell-side mandate – this time it’s a $50 million-a-year trans-Tasman business – and Pacific Equity Partners’ hotshot dealmakers have ruled off another exit.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk Editors