Good evening,

Here’s a taste of what’s to come this year.

Street Talk has landed in the world of impact investing tonight, finding a new impact investment firm raising and uncovering a potentially large M&A deal.

The M&A leg is Australian born-and-bred consulting firm The Palladium Group, which started as part of Kerry Packer’s business empire and now operates globally.

Palladium is best known for advising on and overseeing foreign aid, both in Australia and offshore which, it turns out, is big business.

Palladium, which says it specialises in all things “positive impact”, has called in the bankers to see whether there may be a deep-pocketed suitor that would like to buy into the group. It’s been pitched with $40 million to $50 million a year in annual earnings, fuelling expectations of a $500 million-odd valuation.

It’s early days but, given the focus on impact investing, positive impact and the like, it looks ripe for the times.

We’ve also secured the documents for infrastructure manager Palisade’s new arm, Palisade Impact, which has kicked off a fundraising this week.

Elsewhere, we take a look at the latest battery metals raising (another theme for 2022, we’re sure), and report on TPG Capital’s latest move at clinical research contractor Novotech.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood

Street Talk Editors