Good evening,

It’s standing-room only at Austal!

Street Talk can reveal South Korean conglomerate Hanwha has hired Macquarie Capital to guide it through Austal’s data room, joining three other parties already studying the books: New York’s JF Lehman & Company (with Morgan Stanley), Cerberus Capital Management (with Citi) and Arlington Capital Partners.

That’s a lot of prospective bidders, and Austal’s shareholders have their fingers crossed someone would hurry up and just lob a bid.

It was a similar situation at listed funeral business InvoCare, where bidder TPG Capital’s due diligence ran out today. The two are unlikely to have a bid ready to go on the ASX tomorrow morning – a short extension is the more likely outcome – but both camps were understood to be happy to stick to the $13 a share price on Monday evening.

Elsewhere, we found mid-market PE investor Next Capital stocked up on dry powder with a $375 million raise, and Partners Group hired a head of private equity.

Happy reading,
Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Street Talk editors