SWF circles Novotech | NQA owners launch $3b auction | Cuscal pricing

Good evening,

Pricing has landed for ASX-aspirant Cuscal, and sole lead manager Bank of America has peddled hard to make its valuation juicy enough to get the initial public offering done and dusted on its second crack.

Street Talk understands Cuscal’s offer price has been fixed at $2.50 per share, or 13.1 times forecast financial year 2025 earnings. The company will seek to raise up to $336.8 million, giving it a $479.1 million market capitalisation post-listing, sources said on Sunday.

Bell Potter and Ord Minnett are co-lead managers on Cuscal. Pre-marketing research will be sent to listed equities investors on October 28.

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

All three shareholders of North Queensland Airports, owner of the Cairns and Mackay airports, have opted to offload their stakes in a $3 billion auction that is slated to launch this side of Christmas.

It is the first 100 per cent sale of a privately held airport asset with more than 1 million passengers in the past 15 years.

Australian shares dropped the most in six weeks on Friday in broad losses after Chinese data confirmed the Asian giant economy was slowing, hitting commodity stocks hard.

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