A$11.7bn Qube Holdings takeover becomes effective
Qube Holdings Limited confirmed yesterday “that an office copy of the orders made by the ...
Australian infrastructure fund Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) has seen its A$11.6bn (US$7.5bn) bid to buy logistics and port operator Qube Holdings accepted.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, Qube said the offer of A$5.20 per share represented a near-28% premium on Qube’s share price of $4.07 at market closing last week.
The Qube board unanimously voted to recommend the offer to shareholders and subsequently entered into a process deed with MAM that “grants MAM a period of exclusive due diligence access from the date of the deed until 1 February 2026”.
“The proposal from Macquarie Asset Management is a reflection of the strength of Qube’s business model and our assets, and the quality of our people and culture,” Qube chairman John Bevan said.
“We look forward to continuing to engage constructively in the best interests of our shareholders,” he added.
Qube Holdings is a highly diversified corporation with operations in container, automotive logistics and bulk commodities transport, storage, distribution and stevedoring.
Its 2024-2025 financial year, which concluded in August, saw it report revenues of A$4.5bn, up 27% on the year before, while EBITDA for the period was A$616m, up 15% on the year before.
However, these figures do not include its 50% stake in the country’s leading container terminal operator, Patrick Terminals, likely to be a key attraction in the takeover bid.
Qube said that, adjusted for its Patrick part-ownership, 2024-2025 revenues were A$4.9bn, and EBITDA was A$806m.
Last year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which authors an annual container stevedoring monitoring report, found Patrick held a 47% market share in Australia’s container port market in the 2023-2024 period.
Source: ACCC
However, this has since declined to a 42% market share, Qube noted in its annual report.
“Patrick’s market share normalised to around 42% for the period compared with 47% in FY24, with the previous comparable period benefiting from the industrial action which impacted Patrick’s major competitor,” it noted.
However, it also appears that Qube has agreed to purchase the remaining 50% of Patrick Terminals from its other shareholder, Canadian fund Brookfield Asset Management.
Although the MAM offer is based on a 50% ownership of Patrick, Qube MD Paul Digney, speaking at the company’s AGM last week, indicated a sale had been agreed. He said: “Brookfield’s agreed sale of its 50% interest in Patrick, at a modest premium to the prior $6.6bn valuation, validated Qube’s strategy of acquiring and owning highly strategic long-term infrastructure assets.”
This is also supported by a second-quarter letter to Brookfield shareholders from CEO Bruce Flatt, which also mentioned a sale.
“We also saw strong monetisation activity and a continued robust pipeline in our infrastructure business, where we sold nearly $13bn of assets. This includes Patrick Terminals, a container terminal operations business in Australia, for $2bn.”
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