ASX closes lower; AUB dives 18% after takeover consortium withdraws
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: The Australian sharemarket finished lower amid broad losses as AUB Group led losses after announcing that Swedish private equity fund EQT and CVC walked away from a consortium acquisition proposal.
The benchmark ASX 200 fell 0.57% to finish at 8,565.2, with eight of the 11 sectors finishing in the red.
The healthcare sector (-1.7%) was the worst performer on Monday as CSL (-1.4%), Sigma Healthcare (-1.4%) and Resmed (-4.6%) finished lower. Pro Medicus (-1.6%) fell despite announcing a $25 million software contract with Florida-based BayCare.
Biggest movers:
- AUB Group (-17.8%) – Terminated discussions with EQT and CVC Asia Pacific, after the private equity suitors pulled their joint bid for the company. The investors had indicated an offer price of $45.
- Metcash (-9.2%) – Reported a 0.3% rise in statutory profit after tax to $142.2 million for the first half of FY26, boosted by sales growth across all business segments, excluding tobacco.
- Greatland Resources (+10.2%) – The best performer on the ASX 200 after announcing that a feasibility study for its Havieron deposit “sets the pathway for its development into a long-life, low cost, leading gold-copper mine”.
- Tuas (+4.9%) – Ahead of its annual general meeting, the Singapore-based telco flagged subscriber growth in the first quarter of FY26, which delivered unaudited NPAT of $9.1 million. Expects FY26 capital investment in the range of $45 million and $55 million.
Deals news:
- Cuscal (-4.3%) – Completed its $75 million acquisition of Queensland-based rival Indue. Cuscal expects between $15 million and $20 million in annual run rate cost synergies by the end of FY29. Post-tax nonrecurring integration costs are expected to be between $25 million and $30 million over three years.
- APA Group (-0.4%) – Signed a joint development agreement with Queensland state-owned CS Energy for the delivery and ownership of the proposed Brigalow Peaking Power Plant. APA will take an 80% interest in the project while CS Energy will retain a 20% share.
- Centuria Capital Group (+0.9%) – Acquired Arrow Funds Management which had the management rights to the unlisted $444 million agricultural real estate portfolio Arrow Primary Infrastructure Fund.
Other news:
- ASX Limited (-2.8%) – Suffered an outage in company announcements for nearly three hours on Monday morning. About 80 companies were put into a trading halt due to delays in the release of price sensitive announcements.
- Treasury Wine (-0.7%) – Expects to recognise a non-cash impairment of its US-based assets, resulting in "at least all" goodwill of $687.4 million currently carried in the Americas business being written off.
- NextDC (+1.1%) – Increased its FY26 capital expenditure guidance by $400 million to build and deploy new capacity following new contract wins.
- Fortescue (+0.8%) – Delivered its first large scale BYD battery energy storage system at its North Star Junction solar farm near Port Hedland, which is supplying power to its iron ore operations in the Pilbara, Western Australia.
What’s ahead:
- The Institute for Supply Management will release data on US the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for November on Tuesday at 2:30am AEDT.
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release building approvals data for October on Tuesday at 11:30am AEDT.
- The Australia Bureau of Statistics will release national current account data for September on Tuesday at 11:30am AEDT.
