Good evening,

It’s hard to know where to start tonight.

Scheme of arrangements are a safe place, again, after a judge ruled Pendal and suitor Perpetual were bound by the words both companies signed in their scheme implementation deed in August.

In the near term, that means it’s harder or more costly for EQT/Regal to go after one-half of the Australian funds management marriage, without also going after the other. And, while EQT/Regal are keen on Perpetual and reckon they can fund the deal, they’re not nearly as keen on also acquiring Pendal.

In the longer term, lawyers will be talking about the Perpetual/Pendal judgement for years to come. We expect to be bowled over with law firm reports on what it means for future SIDs and deals in coming weeks - but it feels like it’ll be significant.

In deals, we finally got to the bottom of the David Jones situation, and found the family office.

It’s fair to say it was nowhere near where we were originally looking.

While there are plenty of family offices with interests in Australian retail - Besens, Forrests’, Larry Kestelman’s, Lowys, Fraids etc - we should’ve been thinking old-fashioned tech and the Teohs.

The Teohs, of TPG Telecom fame, are the second horse in the two horse race. The story attracted a lot of interest, because of the shock value if nothing else.

But, as we write tonight, it’s still private equity firm Anchorage Capital’s deal to lose.

We also reveal an acquisition pending for AMP Bank and an investment under consideration at Five V Capital.

And there was some action for the Credit Suisse watchers - which our new investment banking correspondent colleague Aaron Weinman will add to on Friday.

All that was missing on Thursday was a BHP/OZ Minerals update. Maybe no news is good news, but probably not...

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood

Street Talk Editors