Good evening,

Private equity investors usually stay away from defence businesses, but Sydney’s CPE Capital can’t seem to keep its hands off the sector.

It has just signed off on two defence purchases: TAE Aerospace and RUAG’s Australian operations.

For the uninitiated, TAE maintains engines for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 aircraft; RUAG is owned by the Swiss government.

CPE plans to add the two acquisitions to its defence and aerospace contractor, ASDAM, which already owns Marand Precision Engineering and Levett Engineering.

It’s a lot of words that don’t exactly roll off the tongue, but the bottom line is that CPE has quietly cobbled together a business that could be big enough to have a run at the ASX boards or land on a suitor’s radar.

Elsewhere, UBS has snagged a role advising on Delta Agribusiness’ potential PE selldown, and Mirvac has Jarden and CBRE looking for a deep-pocketed build-to-rent partner.

Lastly, Potentia Capital has climbed to 19.9 per cent of the register at bombed-out Nitro Software, despite protests from shareholders Australian Ethical and Forager Funds Management.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk Editors