Good evening,

Suncorp Group has pulled off its long-awaited escape from Australian banking, agreeing a $4.9 billion deal to sell to big four bank ANZ.

The deal, as we revealed a few days ago, was signed and announced on Monday morning, after about eight weeks of intensive talks.

Street Talk has a look at the players involved in the deal – and how it came together.

The deal was a friendly marriage between a financial services bigwig with fed-up investors, and a bank with growth ambitions that had been losing market share to its rivals.

While Suncorp’s Project Galileo had plenty of options – a merger with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, restart talks with Bank of Queensland, a demerger, or a big four – it went with ANZ, which offered what it thought was a big price, a clean exit from banking and certainty for its employees.

Elsewhere, we’ve picked up a new deal out of Nomura’s new green banking arm Nomura Greentech, and get the latest on IXOM’s proposed auction.

Happy reading,
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk editors