Street Talk

Canadian suitor clucks at Aware’s $1b-plus chicken producer, ProTen

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Mar 24, 2025 – 5.00am

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Toronto-headquartered Northleaf Capital Partners has emerged as a suitor for ProTen, the $1 billion-plus chicken farmer owned by industry super bigwig Aware Super. Binding bids are expected to be submitted in April.

Street Talk understands Northleaf’s Melbourne-based infrastructure team, led by Tom Irvine, was among parties that submitted a non-binding indicative bid for ProTen, which produces 174 million birds a year or about 25 per cent of Australia’s annual consumption. ProTen is among Australia’s biggest chicken producers, and is being shopped with $70 million EBITDA and a $1 billion-plus price tag by Macquarie Capital.

Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.

Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column.

Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.