Mike Cannon-Brookes’s big win at AGL
Tony: “This has got to be the best activist campaigns in Australian history. Who else with 11 per cent of a company can get effectively five independent directors onto the board and this is what Mike Cannon-Brookes has done.”
James: “It was a bit of a tame meeting. But the interesting thing happened right at the end. After the official business and after the cameras had been turned off, three of the Cannon-Brookes directors were in the room, John Pollaers, Kerrie Schott and Christine Holman. And they walked up on stage and shook hands with all their new colleagues. It was all very cordial, lots of polite smiles…the tone very much was ‘we can be grownups and get on with it. There’s a big job here to do at AGL, and we can unify’.”
The Perpetual-Pendal deal looks set to go ahead
Tony: I think that’s the likely outcome. I can’t see Phil King coming back with a blockbuster $40 a share offer for Perpetual.”
James: “I don’t think the door is completely closed, but it would certainly take a pretty extraordinary move from here to prevent that merger.”
BHP’s bid for OZ Minerals. A bargain or not?
Tony: “Don’t you love it when a CEO says ‘we are disciplined, we will not overpay’ and here’s an offer on the table at $25 a share. And here we are not that long afterwards, and it’s $28 a share. So, they’ve really lifted this to get it over the line.”
James: “I’m going to disagree here Tony, I reckon this is a bargain. I reckon BHP has almost got this on the cheap. I reckon, in the long-term, copper demand is only going to go up with the energy transition, I reckon this will prove to be a bargain.”
Tips from the Sohn conference
James: “If I had to pick a theme, it’s about businesses that watch other businesses and kick them on the straight and narrow.”
The tech disaster at the ASX
James: “One of the questions at the end of the day is that the ASX has a monopoly on clearing and settlements in this country. Does this put that monopoly at risk?
Tony: “I think it will, James. There’s a huge question now about what will the government do.”
Best of this week’s Chanticleer column
Why BHP’s OZ Minerals deal will prove to be a bargain On a range of metrics, BHP appears to have paid full-price for copper miner OZ Minerals. But there are three good reasons this a bargain for BHP – and BHP only.
ASX tech disaster exposes regulatory holes It is time for the treasurer to take a keen interest in the country’s financial market infrastructure and review the clearing and settlement processes.
Five searing lessons from ASX’s tech disaster Boards of ASX-listed companies should examine the multiple governance and operational failures inside the ASX relating to the $250 million CHESS software project.
Surging theft at this US giant contains a message for investors US giant Target has seen theft leap 50 per cent on pre-COVID-19 levels and sales tank over the last four weeks.
Pendal uses carrot and stick to shore up Perpetual deal The Pendal board has made sacrifices to get the Perpetual board to recommit to their merger. But legal steel from Pendal has also helped things along.
How the Origin takeover explains BHP’s new talks with OZ Minerals The huge ramp-up in renewable energy projects over the coming decades will send copper demand soaring. That makes OZ Minerals valuable, particularly to BHP.
For more of the Financial Review’s take on the Medibank and Optus hacks, listen to this week’s episode of The Fin podcast below or wherever you get your podcasts.
