Good evening,

A big bank deal could be coming to the ASX boards soon, starring NAB and Suncorp Group.

Street Talk understands that NAB’s bigwigs have informally registered their interest in buying Suncorp’s banking business, if the regional bank were to ever stop pussyfooting around a sale.

If this pans out, Suncorp would get $5 billion or so in capital returns and deliverance from its investors’ long-standing grumblings about growth. Such a deal would also change it from being a “bancassurer” to just an insurer.

We’ve got the details on where things are at, and how other banks would look in a potential sale.

Over in IPO land, carbon offsets trading business Xpansiv has slashed its expectations of a $2 billion listing valuation to between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion.

The question now is whether it perseveres with an IPO or shunts its capital needs to the private markets, a la Songtradr.

Elsewhere, Credit Suisse has a new $1 billion-odd renewables business for sale called Enel Green Power; Saba co-owner John Marshall’s investment firm is raising for a growth credit fund; and investors have been watching trading volumes at Australian Agriculture Company.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk Editors