Good evening,

Tyro Payments stole the morning in dealmaking for its cheeky disclosure of Potentia Capital’s non-binding bid, in a $700 million M&A situation with the lot.

There’s private capital, superannuation funds, an Atlassian founder, a bombed out tech stock, and one of the biggest name chairmen in the country, David Thodey, who’s already showed he has some M&A tricks up his sleeve.

But we reckon Street Talk stole the afternoon, with our scoop that Mineral Resources was looking at a lithium spin-off in the United States, in what could be a huge deal for shareholders.

MinRes has JPMorgan’s bankers on the case, looking at whether it would be possible to list the company’s Australian lithium arm, and create billions of dollars in value.

It’s the next logical step in MinRes’ well-thought-out plan, which first saw it set up the lithium arm alongside its iron ore and mining services units, grow it to become the biggest lithium spodumene play on the ASX, and then internally separate it into a separate business unit.

Sources said MinRes and its bankers have been studying structures for months – and thought the US was the best bet for a lithium company, given the market has shown plenty of support for fellow producer Albemarle.

Elsewhere, we check in on Ord Minnett’s IPO contenders of 2023, and have M&A scoopsinvolving AustralianSuper/Brookfield, and a financial publication.

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