Good evening,

It’s down from 30-plus tyre kickers to about six credible bidders at London-listed Anglo American’s $US5 billion ($7.38 billion) Queensland coal auction, as chief executive Duncan Wanblad races against the clock to appease angry shareholders.

Anglo’s bankers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, shortlisted about half a dozen parties on Tuesday to progress to the auction’s final round after collecting non-binding indicative bids on September 9. The five mines produce about 15 million tonnes of coal annually, which boiled down to a net profit of $999 million last year and more than $2.83 billion in the preceding 12 months.

Street Talk can reveal that the shortlisted bidders include the highly acquisitive Stanmore Resources, and Indian mining group AvidSys, which won the auction for Anglo’s Dawson mine in 2017 before the project was shelved. Stanmore is bidding alongside the ultra-wealthy Indonesian Widjaja family’s GEAR and Matt Latimore’s M Resources.

Sources said Chinese-backed Yancoal was also well-placed before the shortlisting, as was the New York-listed Peabody Energy, whose C-suite is meeting with banks in Sydney this week. Swiss mining juggernaut Glencore, the most cashed-up of the lot, has been secretive on its status in the auction – although sources said it would be highly unusual for it to be left out of the shortlist. Japan’s Mitsubishi and ASX-listed New Hope lobbed first-round bids but didn’t make the cut.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

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Dealmakers need to get their skates on. Sell-side adviser UBS is calling for non-binding indicative bids for K1 Investment Management’s Elmo Software by early October.

The Australian sharemarket ended flat on Wednesday but still managed to reset its record for the third session ahead of the much-expected first interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve since the pandemic.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.