Macquarie Asset Management-led consortium → Qube Holdings
completedA Macquarie Asset Management-led consortium (with UniSuper and Pontegadea as co-investors) agreed to buy ports and logistics operator Qube for A$5.20/share, a 28% premium, valuing the business at A$11.7bn.
The buyers wanted Qube's ports, rail, and bulk logistics infrastructure as a long-duration, inflation-linked asset base — the kind of steady cash-generating infrastructure institutional and pension money likes to hold for decades.
Qube's board recommended the deal on the view that the premium and certainty of an all-cash offer beat the risk of continuing to grow the business as a standalone public company.
Qube shares jumped as much as 4.1% to a record high of A$5.05 on the day the binding agreement was announced, though they stayed a few percent below Macquarie's A$5.20 offer pending deal completion.
Commentators framed the deal as a sign Australian M&A was "sparking back to life" after a quiet stretch, with the record share-price reaction read as confidence the deal would complete.
Deal mechanics
Not separately named; Macquarie Asset Management led its own consortium
UBS (financial adviser) and Allens (legal adviser) advised Qube
Scheme of arrangement; all-cash at A$5.20/share, not subject to any financing condition
Not publicly disclosed
Cleared FIRB and ACCC (Phase 1 Determination that the bid could proceed, finding no competition concerns from the consortium's other Australian ports/logistics holdings)
Equity from MAM-managed funds and co-investors UniSuper, Pontegadea, Temasek, GIC, NPS, and CalPERS