July 9, 2025 • 11 mins
After a fairly lean period, it feels like the M&A market is bouncing back nicely with a number of deals announced this year.
Headline deals include a consortium from the Middle-east bidding for Santos and James Hardies’ purchase of Azek in the US. There’s also a US group potentially buying online real estate portal Domain and a bunch of deals, or at least rumoured deals, in the smaller end of the ming sector.
Sandy Mak, Head of Corporate at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, joins Sean in the studio for an update on what’s happening in the M&A market.
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed business Interview. I'm Sean Aylmer.
For a fairly lean period, it feels like the M
and A market is bouncing back nicely, with a number
of deals announced over the last year or so. Headline
deals include a consortium from the Middle East bidding for
Santos James Hardy's purchase of AAAC in the US. There's
also a US group potentially buying online real estate portal domain,
(00:27):
and a bunch of other deals or at least rumoured
deals in the smaller end of the mining sector. For
an update on what's happening. I welcome into the studio
this morning, Sandy Mack, head of corporate at Course Chambers, Westcat. Sandy,
welcome back to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you very much for having me, Sean.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It just seems a lot busier now than it was
twelve months ago.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You know what it does. But at the same time,
and I think this term maybe is used a little
bit frequently, but I feel it's apt at the moment,
which is this cautious optimism in the market on M
and A, and we're in a number of the transactions
that you've mentioned recently and so it's interesting that some
(01:06):
of these deals they were on foot before Liberation Day
and have continued to progress. Others have come around after
Liberation Day. But I think it's fair to say that
at the beginning of the year, we all started with
a great deal of optimism about what was going to
happen in the M and A market, and I had
predicted at the end of last year when we spoke
together that there was going to be a real resurgence
(01:28):
in M and A. It feels like that there was
a little bit of a hiccup at the beginning of
the calendar year. But I think market participants are getting
back into the swing of it again, and I think
that there is now a renewed enthusiasm to do deals,
but they have to be the right deals.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, so let's just park Liberation Day for a moment.
We'll come to the US. Is it about otherwise? Is
it about lower interest rates? Is it about the economic outlook?
Is it about boards just seemingly getting a little bit
more confidence about balance sheets three or four years after COVID.
Why is it twenty twenty five being such a good year.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think it's a function of all of the things
that you mentioned sean interest rates. Lower interest rates in
particular do make a difference. And I think that the
desire to grow and certainly private equity and this ubiquitous
dry powder that we talk about all the time, and
the need to do deals. We've had a real period
(02:24):
of pent up demand coming up into this year, and
the expectation from all of the market participants and advisors
was that we would see this year be a real
bumper here, and I think we've seen We've seen some
really great deals get announced, and some of these were
in the making, like the domain deal in which we
were acting, they were in the making before the beginning
(02:46):
of the year, but others like the Santosh transaction, only
came into the market after January, so that there is
a real desire to see growth and to do the
right deals for the right value. I think Australia is
a huge beneficiary of a lot of flow of capital
coming in from cross border transactions, which is another thing
that we predicted at the end of last year, and
I think we are starting to see a lot of
(03:07):
that come through.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, So that kind of introduces the idea of what's
happening to your politically and nothing is bigger, not just tariffs,
but trade policy, economic policy in the US, one big
beautiful bill. How does that ply out on M and
I in this country?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
There is nothing mn A participants hate more than uncertainty.
And I think all of those things led to a
period of uncertainty. And then you combine that with not
just political and economic policy, but you have geopolitical instability
as well in all of the recent events that we've
seen in the Middle East. And I think that if
(03:43):
you go and speak to anyone who is a practitioner
in m and A in the United States, they will
tell you that Q one calendar year twenty five was
not a great time. They really had a massive dip
in M and A activity. Not only was it not
what they were hoping it was going to be, because
(04:04):
they all came into twenty twenty five thinking was going
to be a real bumper year with a political regime
that would facilitate from a regulatory and economic policy perspective,
lots of transactions, and that took a real hit sometime
in GENFAB. But I think everybody is starting to feel
much more optimistic now. It's starting to settle down. People
(04:25):
are starting to factor in some of the uncertainty that
comes about and have decided to just go ahead and
do deals. Lower interest rates definitely help that dynamic as well.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Just transferring that to Australia. So we're talking about the US,
they're being a bit disappointing in Australia. Obviously it hasn't been.
Does it at the margin make Australia a better place
to invest if you're an offshore fund manager looking to
put their money somewhere? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Look, I'm highly biased, obviously, but I do absolutely think so.
And I think that's anecdotally and statistically being proven as
well what we are seeing, and if you just look
at Sheer stats public mnage transactions, there's been a slight
downward trend in the number of transactions, but obviously transactions
like Santos have meant that the value of the deals
(05:10):
that we are seeing twenty twenty five is out strip
twenty twenty four by a country mile. And I think
Australia offers a stable political regime, it offers good rule
of law, and I think it is one of those
places now that where you look at people wanting to
put capital Asia, the Asia Pacific region, India, Japan and
Australia are key focuses for lots of investors at the moment.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Stay with me, Sandy, we'll be back in a minute.
I'm speaking to Sandy mac, head of corporate at Course
Chambers West Garth. Ahead of the break. We're talking about
the benefits of investing in the Asia region, including Australia.
We talked about the Santa Steele. The reason that its
(05:53):
share price is training nowhere near what the offer price
is is because of regularly uncertainty that in that instance
that it needs Foreign Investment Review Board. Another one James
Hardy buying ISAAC. There's a lot of fewer or over
that that James Hardy's shareholders, local shareholders didn't actually get
to vote on that, notwithstanding it's going to have a
primary listing in the US. Is this I mean, are
(06:15):
they just two unusual examples or is it just more
regulatory scrutiny going on at the moment.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I think they are two very different examples, and I
should caution you by saying that we were involved in both,
and we are currently involved in the Santos transaction, so
I have to be careful what I say. But I
think fundamentally that it's no surprise to anyone that this
is a you know, it's a large transaction with a
foreign shareholder that's looking to buy it, and so furb
will always be something that you have to navigate. I
(06:43):
don't think that FERB has become worse if you in
inverted commas. I don't think the policy settings. In fact,
I think it's gone the other way. In our experiences
acting on a number of transactions recently, what we are
seeing is a really willing executive trying to facilitate transactions
with in a good timeframe, and I think hats off
(07:03):
to the regulator for that. Every deal has to be
looked on on its merits, and you know, national interests
is the thing that will be driving a lot of
the considerations of transactions. So that's on the third front.
Azach and James Hardy completely different. And I believe that
there are some murmurings about about potentially changing our listing
(07:23):
rules in order to accommodate a shareholder vote in these
sorts of circumstances. You know, whether there's quite a significant
percentage of the bidder's shares being issued as consideration at
the moment, it only you only needed if it's effectively
a reverse takeover, which is a fifty percent issuance. So
I think where we come back to is each situation
(07:44):
is different. I don't think that the regulatory landscape has
shifted so dramatically to make it worse. Having said all that,
we have the major clearance rules coming in in January one,
twenty twenty six which will be quite a different regime
for everyone. It's used to practicing M and A here,
and so we're going to have to adapt to doing
all of that as well. And that one remains a
(08:06):
slight unknown in terms of how execution will play out.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So just give me a thumbnail sketch. Not being quite
across likes saying a thumbnail sketch what that means.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So currently our regime, our a triple C merger clearance regime,
basically says that if it's not going to be a
substantial lessening of competition in merging two companies together, you
don't need a formal a tripleC clearance. We are moving
from the first of January twenty sixth to what we
call a mandatory suspensory regime. So if you hit certain
(08:35):
filing thresholds, you are going to have to make a
filing and get clearance. That was one of the basies
that I predicted that this year we would see much
more activity as people try and get the ideals in
for a head of that merger clearance regime. I still
think that is the case, but I think we're now
in the second half of the year, so everybody is
starting to turn their minds to what happens if it
(08:57):
doesn't get cleared this year, or what do we need
to be doing to ensure that we can get through
the air TRIBC framework in sufficient time to close our
deals next year.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So you must be close to a lot of these deals.
Do they file mostly on financial issues or do they
file on personality issues cultural issues?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Largely it's financial In my view, there are most of
the clients that we work with a highly sophisticated deal
makers and there is a real understanding of how to
deal with people, personalities and cultural alignment. I think culture
clashes make execution potentially marginally more difficult, but if the
numbers are right and the valuation is right, people will
(09:36):
get a deal done.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Cash always wins. So looking forward, what about the next
twelve months, what are we going to get to any
more of the same sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, what I will predict is that we have an
M and outlook coming out again this year, so I
will have much better dimes.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Not talk of a November.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I'll have much better data at that point. But
from where we sit right now, we're tracking towards a
pretty good year, all of the you know, political and
geopolitical instability notwithstanding, we're tracking to have a great bumper
year by value of deals. I think by number of
deals will probably end up better, if not, you know,
(10:14):
at least the same as we had last year. And
I think the key will be execution. It will be
you know, being really deft in your execution, being really
quick at doing deals, and finding creative solutions to bridge
valuation gaps as always, because I still think there is
a little bit of a delta between buyers and sellers.
(10:34):
It's not still fully a buyers market, so people still
need to get to this position where they're convincing vendors
that the price is right for the transaction.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean, the Santas deal is an example where at
some point in the last couple of years, and I'm
not asking you to comment on this in any way,
it in Woodside had spoken from media reports, it went
on and on and on. It just did't never get done.
Right now, whether that's right or not, the point being
that when deals take a long time, they don't seem
to get across the line. So how much value is
(11:05):
there in doing the deal quickly?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I think the mantra time kills deals. It's definitely true.
I think, particularly in public eminy enlisted company world, where
Tho's share prices are moving all the time. You've got
people treating, you've got arbitrags, you've got the hedge funds
in and out of the stock all the time. I think,
you know, getting it across the line as quickly as
(11:27):
possible is probably one of the more important planks of
your execution strategy in Emine.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Sandy, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That was Sandy Mack, head of corporate at Cause Chambers,
westcarth This is the Fear and Greed Business Interview. Join
us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed,
daily business news for people who make their own decisions
on chanelmo. Enjoy your day,
Welcome to the Fear and Greed business Interview. I'm Sean Aylmer.
For a fairly lean period, it feels like the M
and A market is bouncing back nicely, with a number
of deals announced over the last year or so. Headline
deals include a consortium from the Middle East bidding for
Santos James Hardy's purchase of AAAC in the US. There's
also a US group potentially buying online real estate portal domain,
(00:27):
and a bunch of other deals or at least rumoured
deals in the smaller end of the mining sector. For
an update on what's happening. I welcome into the studio
this morning, Sandy Mack, head of corporate at Course Chambers, Westcat. Sandy,
welcome back to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you very much for having me, Sean.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It just seems a lot busier now than it was
twelve months ago.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You know what it does. But at the same time,
and I think this term maybe is used a little
bit frequently, but I feel it's apt at the moment,
which is this cautious optimism in the market on M
and A, and we're in a number of the transactions
that you've mentioned recently and so it's interesting that some
(01:06):
of these deals they were on foot before Liberation Day
and have continued to progress. Others have come around after
Liberation Day. But I think it's fair to say that
at the beginning of the year, we all started with
a great deal of optimism about what was going to
happen in the M and A market, and I had
predicted at the end of last year when we spoke
together that there was going to be a real resurgence
(01:28):
in M and A. It feels like that there was
a little bit of a hiccup at the beginning of
the calendar year. But I think market participants are getting
back into the swing of it again, and I think
that there is now a renewed enthusiasm to do deals,
but they have to be the right deals.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, so let's just park Liberation Day for a moment.
We'll come to the US. Is it about otherwise? Is
it about lower interest rates? Is it about the economic outlook?
Is it about boards just seemingly getting a little bit
more confidence about balance sheets three or four years after COVID.
Why is it twenty twenty five being such a good year.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think it's a function of all of the things
that you mentioned sean interest rates. Lower interest rates in
particular do make a difference. And I think that the
desire to grow and certainly private equity and this ubiquitous
dry powder that we talk about all the time, and
the need to do deals. We've had a real period
(02:24):
of pent up demand coming up into this year, and
the expectation from all of the market participants and advisors
was that we would see this year be a real
bumper here, and I think we've seen We've seen some
really great deals get announced, and some of these were
in the making, like the domain deal in which we
were acting, they were in the making before the beginning
(02:46):
of the year, but others like the Santosh transaction, only
came into the market after January, so that there is
a real desire to see growth and to do the
right deals for the right value. I think Australia is
a huge beneficiary of a lot of flow of capital
coming in from cross border transactions, which is another thing
that we predicted at the end of last year, and
I think we are starting to see a lot of
(03:07):
that come through.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, So that kind of introduces the idea of what's
happening to your politically and nothing is bigger, not just tariffs,
but trade policy, economic policy in the US, one big
beautiful bill. How does that ply out on M and
I in this country?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
There is nothing mn A participants hate more than uncertainty.
And I think all of those things led to a
period of uncertainty. And then you combine that with not
just political and economic policy, but you have geopolitical instability
as well in all of the recent events that we've
seen in the Middle East. And I think that if
(03:43):
you go and speak to anyone who is a practitioner
in m and A in the United States, they will
tell you that Q one calendar year twenty five was
not a great time. They really had a massive dip
in M and A activity. Not only was it not
what they were hoping it was going to be, because
(04:04):
they all came into twenty twenty five thinking was going
to be a real bumper year with a political regime
that would facilitate from a regulatory and economic policy perspective,
lots of transactions, and that took a real hit sometime
in GENFAB. But I think everybody is starting to feel
much more optimistic now. It's starting to settle down. People
(04:25):
are starting to factor in some of the uncertainty that
comes about and have decided to just go ahead and
do deals. Lower interest rates definitely help that dynamic as well.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Just transferring that to Australia. So we're talking about the US,
they're being a bit disappointing in Australia. Obviously it hasn't been.
Does it at the margin make Australia a better place
to invest if you're an offshore fund manager looking to
put their money somewhere? Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Look, I'm highly biased, obviously, but I do absolutely think so.
And I think that's anecdotally and statistically being proven as
well what we are seeing, and if you just look
at Sheer stats public mnage transactions, there's been a slight
downward trend in the number of transactions, but obviously transactions
like Santos have meant that the value of the deals
(05:10):
that we are seeing twenty twenty five is out strip
twenty twenty four by a country mile. And I think
Australia offers a stable political regime, it offers good rule
of law, and I think it is one of those
places now that where you look at people wanting to
put capital Asia, the Asia Pacific region, India, Japan and
Australia are key focuses for lots of investors at the moment.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Stay with me, Sandy, we'll be back in a minute.
I'm speaking to Sandy mac, head of corporate at Course
Chambers West Garth. Ahead of the break. We're talking about
the benefits of investing in the Asia region, including Australia.
We talked about the Santa Steele. The reason that its
(05:53):
share price is training nowhere near what the offer price
is is because of regularly uncertainty that in that instance
that it needs Foreign Investment Review Board. Another one James
Hardy buying ISAAC. There's a lot of fewer or over
that that James Hardy's shareholders, local shareholders didn't actually get
to vote on that, notwithstanding it's going to have a
primary listing in the US. Is this I mean, are
(06:15):
they just two unusual examples or is it just more
regulatory scrutiny going on at the moment.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I think they are two very different examples, and I
should caution you by saying that we were involved in both,
and we are currently involved in the Santos transaction, so
I have to be careful what I say. But I
think fundamentally that it's no surprise to anyone that this
is a you know, it's a large transaction with a
foreign shareholder that's looking to buy it, and so furb
will always be something that you have to navigate. I
(06:43):
don't think that FERB has become worse if you in
inverted commas. I don't think the policy settings. In fact,
I think it's gone the other way. In our experiences
acting on a number of transactions recently, what we are
seeing is a really willing executive trying to facilitate transactions
with in a good timeframe, and I think hats off
(07:03):
to the regulator for that. Every deal has to be
looked on on its merits, and you know, national interests
is the thing that will be driving a lot of
the considerations of transactions. So that's on the third front.
Azach and James Hardy completely different. And I believe that
there are some murmurings about about potentially changing our listing
(07:23):
rules in order to accommodate a shareholder vote in these
sorts of circumstances. You know, whether there's quite a significant
percentage of the bidder's shares being issued as consideration at
the moment, it only you only needed if it's effectively
a reverse takeover, which is a fifty percent issuance. So
I think where we come back to is each situation
(07:44):
is different. I don't think that the regulatory landscape has
shifted so dramatically to make it worse. Having said all that,
we have the major clearance rules coming in in January one,
twenty twenty six which will be quite a different regime
for everyone. It's used to practicing M and A here,
and so we're going to have to adapt to doing
all of that as well. And that one remains a
(08:06):
slight unknown in terms of how execution will play out.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So just give me a thumbnail sketch. Not being quite
across likes saying a thumbnail sketch what that means.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So currently our regime, our a triple C merger clearance regime,
basically says that if it's not going to be a
substantial lessening of competition in merging two companies together, you
don't need a formal a tripleC clearance. We are moving
from the first of January twenty sixth to what we
call a mandatory suspensory regime. So if you hit certain
(08:35):
filing thresholds, you are going to have to make a
filing and get clearance. That was one of the basies
that I predicted that this year we would see much
more activity as people try and get the ideals in
for a head of that merger clearance regime. I still
think that is the case, but I think we're now
in the second half of the year, so everybody is
starting to turn their minds to what happens if it
(08:57):
doesn't get cleared this year, or what do we need
to be doing to ensure that we can get through
the air TRIBC framework in sufficient time to close our
deals next year.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So you must be close to a lot of these deals.
Do they file mostly on financial issues or do they
file on personality issues cultural issues?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Largely it's financial In my view, there are most of
the clients that we work with a highly sophisticated deal
makers and there is a real understanding of how to
deal with people, personalities and cultural alignment. I think culture
clashes make execution potentially marginally more difficult, but if the
numbers are right and the valuation is right, people will
(09:36):
get a deal done.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Cash always wins. So looking forward, what about the next
twelve months, what are we going to get to any
more of the same sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, what I will predict is that we have an
M and outlook coming out again this year, so I
will have much better dimes.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Not talk of a November.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I'll have much better data at that point. But
from where we sit right now, we're tracking towards a
pretty good year, all of the you know, political and
geopolitical instability notwithstanding, we're tracking to have a great bumper
year by value of deals. I think by number of
deals will probably end up better, if not, you know,
(10:14):
at least the same as we had last year. And
I think the key will be execution. It will be
you know, being really deft in your execution, being really
quick at doing deals, and finding creative solutions to bridge
valuation gaps as always, because I still think there is
a little bit of a delta between buyers and sellers.
(10:34):
It's not still fully a buyers market, so people still
need to get to this position where they're convincing vendors
that the price is right for the transaction.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean, the Santas deal is an example where at
some point in the last couple of years, and I'm
not asking you to comment on this in any way,
it in Woodside had spoken from media reports, it went
on and on and on. It just did't never get done.
Right now, whether that's right or not, the point being
that when deals take a long time, they don't seem
to get across the line. So how much value is
(11:05):
there in doing the deal quickly?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, I think the mantra time kills deals. It's definitely true.
I think, particularly in public eminy enlisted company world, where
Tho's share prices are moving all the time. You've got
people treating, you've got arbitrags, you've got the hedge funds
in and out of the stock all the time. I think,
you know, getting it across the line as quickly as
(11:27):
possible is probably one of the more important planks of
your execution strategy in Emine.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Sandy, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That was Sandy Mack, head of corporate at Cause Chambers,
westcarth This is the Fear and Greed Business Interview. Join
us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed,
daily business news for people who make their own decisions
on chanelmo. Enjoy your day,
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