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Scott Hartley.

Bain Capital matches $2.9b Insignia bid in private equity shootout

The firm also signalled that it is open to allowing Insignia shareholders to retain some of their stake.

  • Lucas Baird
The big Asutralian investment banks are hoping lower rates and a weaker Australian dollar will make completing deals easier.

After banking $4b in 2024, dealmakers expect a bumper year

Some of the country’s top dealmakers say a more certain outlook will finally dislodge transactions that have been stuck, paving the way for higher fees.

  • Updated
  • Emma Rapaport

Alinta Energy taps investment banks as HK tycoon owner weighs options

Street Talk understands Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook has mandated investment banks UBS and RBC Capital Markets for advice ahead of a major renewables push.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Pacific Equity Partners eyes closure at Equiniti fumble

As things currently stand, PEP’s Fund IV is hopeful of a $316 million payout, or 0.44- times the original investment.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

BoQ’s business banking boss quits in blow to turnaround efforts

Chris Screen had worked at National Australia Bank and Westpac before joining the Queensland lender in 2019. The bank had planned to grow his division this year.

  • Lucas Baird

The post-Barty generation of Australian players has arrived

Maya Joint, 18, is ready to lead a new and exciting crop of young Australian female players including Emerson Jones ahead of her Melbourne Park debut.

  • Gus McCubbing

Opinion & Analysis

How Magellan plans to make money, without two super-hot stocks

Hamish Douglass is gone – along with plenty of clients – but the global equities team marches on with the same search for quality compounders.

Chanticleer

Columnist

Chanticleer

Bumpy Trump era can be boom years for Australia, investors

Australian boardrooms can’t know what his second presidency holds, but they need to be ready to seize opportunities. Change is coming.

Chanticleer

Columnist

Chanticleer

There can only be one winner in the ASX’s big tussle for 2025

Shares in Australia’s big banks are easily outrunning the ASX’s big miners. It will switch, it always does.

Chanticleer

Columnist

Chanticleer

Were the good old days really that good?

Readers’ letters on “old-fashioned Australian values”, the erosion of democracy, gas as a transition fuel, ExxonMobil’s hypocrisy, the Congo’s riches, four-year terms, and nuclear power.

Contributor

Companies in the News

ASX Limited

asx$64.290
 -1.20%

IOOF

ifl$4.220
 2.43%

Macquarie Group

mqg$227.270
 -1.51%

AMP

amp$1.573
 -2.02%

Updated: Jan 13, 2025 – 11.49am. Data is 20 mins delayed.

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Featured

The top six business trends for 2025

Here are six themes we expect to make news in 2025, from professional services to crypto and artificial intelligence across offices, boardrooms and suburbs.

  • John Davidson, James Eyers, Edmund Tadros, Sally Patten, Euan Black and Nick Lenaghan
The number of ADHD patients and prescriptions in Australia have doubled in four years.

Diagnosed in 10 minutes. Inside Australia’s ADHD industrial complex

Prescriptions for ADHD drugs have doubled in the past four years and private clinics are cashing in. Doctors fear profits are taking priority over patient care.

  • Michael Smith

Are you guilty of using this year’s most awful jargon?

Here’s the past 12 months in words and phrases that professionals love to use, and what they’re really saying. We hope to never see any of them again.

  • Updated
  • Edmund Tadros

Yesterday

APRA chairman John Lonsdale has called an end to hybrid securities, despite warnings it could lead investors into riskier products.

Asset managers see opportunities in APRA’s bank hybrid ban

Investors will have to find somewhere to park $43 billion in capital after the prudential regulator decided to phrase them out. Some firms see their chance.

  • Lucas Baird
Coal mines around Muswellbrook in NSW. The price boom has been lucrative for the federal budget, and for regional communities.

Coal price slumps to three-year low as super-cycle fades

The commodity is now selling for 23 per cent less than it was only five months ago as a surge in global supply meets a warmer-than-usual northern summer.

  • Elouise Fowler and Peter Ker
Laser Clinics Australia has grown to 200 stores glopbally.

Laser Clinics to flash silky-smooth legs at bidders; KKR hires adviser

KKR’s Laser Clinics has fielded unsolicited interest from global PE players, prompting local PE boss David Lang to consider strategic options in 2025.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Romania’s Anca Todoni serves during her first-round match on the first day of the Australian Open. Tennis Australia is hoping to use the grand slam as a testing ground for some of its investments.

Tennis Australia raises almost $50m for sports and entertainment fund

Backers of its AO Ventures vehicle include major investors such as John Wylie and Caledonia’s Mark Nelson, along with Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm.

  • Ayesha de Kretser
Insignia CEO Scott Hartley at the Financial Review Super & Wealth Summit in October.

Bain Capital set to match CC Capital at Insignia

Bain Capital, which bought out Virgin Australia in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and swept Estia Health off the ASX in 2023, is eager to take the fight to CC Capital.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
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Magellan’s Alan Pullen started covering financials and now runs two portfolios, including a hand in the firm’s flagship $12 billion fund. He’s seen a lot at Magellan, but always kept his belief in owning stocks.

How Magellan plans to make money, without two super-hot stocks

Hamish Douglass is gone – along with plenty of clients – but the global equities team marches on with the same search for quality compounders.

  • Anthony Macdonald

Dentons sought to bury bullying claim, email shows

An internal email shows the firm sought to protect a senior partner and avoid damaging its local expansion plans.

  • Maxim Shanahan

This Month

Coolmore’s Tom Magnier and Gerry Harvey with the prized Sunlight filly at the Magic Millions sales.

FX proves the secret ingredient at Magic Millions sales

The hit to discretionary spending has led to caution at the lower end this year but foreign “whales” with currency buying power have pushed sales to new records.

  • Michelle Bowes
Industrial action by tug workers could disrupt LNG exports from Gladstone over the next two weeks.

Gladstone industrial action threatens LNG exports

Any disruption to shipments from the Queensland port could temporarily boost gas supplies for the domestic market just as the ACCC is warning of potential shortages in the southern states.

  • Angela Macdonald-Smith
Fire crews battle the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California

LA fires stoke insurer unease as claims bill mounts

Barrenjoey’s Andrew Adams says the wildfires highlight the growing unpredictability of weather patterns and the increasing severity of events.

  • Emma Rapaport
New-gen stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner could finally meet each other in a Grand Slam final during this month’s Australian Open.

Tennis braces for first Alcaraz-Sinner showdown at Open

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have never played in a Grand Slam final despite collecting six out of the last nine major titles. That might be about to change.

  • Gus McCubbing
Star chief executive Steve McCann has already secured first creditor status.

Star has six weeks to find financing as NSW, Queensland rule out help

The company, which operates casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has been burning through cash faster than the market expected as gamblers stay away.

  • Amelia McGuire and Anthony McDonald
Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka.

Bain sweats on FIRB approval before naming new Virgin CEO

The airline’s private equity owners are hoping to avoid a political stoush before an election, with the favoured candidate opposed by powerful unions.

  • Ayesha de Kretser
Australian Open boss Craig Tiley this month with Chinese star and world No. 5 Zheng Qinwen, who made last year’s final.

‘Our competition is the couch’: Why Tiley is serious about pickleball

Pickleball is not a rival to tennis but instead is helping promote racket sports collectively to young people, says Australian Open boss Craig Tiley.

  • Gus McCubbing
Markets are loving Trump 2.0 – for now. Australian business should sense opportunity.

Bumpy Trump era can be boom years for Australia, investors

Australian boardrooms can’t know what his second presidency holds, but they need to be ready to seize opportunities. Change is coming.

  • Anthony Macdonald
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Aspinall’s Casino in London. Crown is selling the business to Wynn.

Crown sells London’s high-end Aspinall’s to Las Vegas giant Wynn

The Blackstone-owned casino operator has been overhauling its portfolio, last year selling its stake in Japanese restaurant chain Nobu in a $180 million deal.

  • Zoe Samios
Alan Taylor, executive chair of Clarity Pharmaceuticals, outside the social housing where he grew up.

The scientist-turned-banker’s mission to fund cancer breakthrough

Alan Taylor has swapped his early years on the sports field and a stint as an investment banker for the boardroom, in his quest to get medical breakthroughs to patients.

  • Michael Smith
A firefighter in Pasadena. More than 100,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate, with about 15,000 structures at risk.

LA fires: US insurers brace for losses of up to $32b

JPMorgan analysts on Friday doubled their expectations for insured losses from a day earlier, citing limited progress on containment and the spread to neighbouring areas.

  • Lee Harris
Djokovic, who is unvaccinated, was deported from Australia.

Djokovic says he was ‘poisoned’ during 2022 Melbourne detention

“I was fed with some food that poisoned me,” said the Serbian 24-times major winner, who is known to monitor his diet strictly.

  • Reuters
Squadron Energy has almost finished building an LNG import terminal in Port Kembla in NSW.

Gas price warning as winter shortages loom for Victoria

ACCC’s warnings that consumers face higher prices as the southern states start to rely on imports have been rejected by the country’s leading LNG importer.

  • Angela Macdonald-Smith

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