Good evening,

Welcome to Street Talk’s first newsletter of the year.

It may be January 5, but it sure feels like January 27, thanks to Warrego Energy and Nitro Software.

Desperate for due diligence, Potentia Capital is now at the Takeovers Panel and trying to blast open Alludo’s stranglehold. Potentia reckons Alludo shouldn’t be allowed to run a takeover and a scheme for its $2.15 offer at the same time. But its main gripe is that Nitro’s board is doing dirty by its shareholders in denying it due diligence and a chance to maybe improve its $2-a-share offer.

The panel is yet to decide if Potentia’s claims warrant attention. Meanwhile, Nitro stock closed at $2.21 today and M&A arbitrage fund Samson Rock bought a small batch of shares at $2.19 on December 30. Alludo’s takeover offer acceptances should also move at a snail’s pace with Potentia still on the scene.

Obviously, investors reckon the battle for Tyro has further to run even after four bids. The question now is if Potentia succeeds in getting due diligence and then walks the talk with a higher offer, or if it has to make up its mind without a look at Nitro’s books.

Things are not as straightforward at Perth Basin gas play Warrego Energy.

Gina Rinehart cranked up her bid to 36¢ a share from 28¢ on Thursday morning, just a day after Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources was caught buying 15 per cent of Warrego’s register at 35¢ a share via Bell Potter (Regal was among the sellers). MinRes’ Warrego shopping came hours after its lawyers Gilbert + Tobin accidentally slipped Strike Energy’s ABN in its bid documents for Norwest Energy. Ouch!

Of course, MinRes brushed it off as a “clerical error”. But no one believes it because the accidental ABN didn’t belong to a random fish-and-chips shop but to Strike Energy, which is a shareholder and the other bidder at Warrego.

It would be interesting to see what MinRes does with its stake. Although Rinehart’s improved bid should help speed up her acceptances (already at 26 per cent, as of Wednesday), investors also know there’s now a new Perth billionaire in the mix even if there’s no bid or even a substantial notice yet.

Elsewhere, the big four banks have started the new year with a bang, zipping up debt deals overseas as the good old days of cheap pandemic funding from the RBA become a sweet memory.

And we polled equity capital markets bosses on what they expect IPOs to look like in 2023 and caught IPO hopeful Koala’s sales slowing down.

Happy reading,

Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood

Street Talk editors