The Macquarie Group Ltd. logo is displayed on the facade of the Macquarie Group Building in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, April 27, 2012.
Ian Waldie | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Shares of Australia’s Qube Holdings jumped to a record high Monday after the ports and logistics company agreed to be taken over by a consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management at an enterprise value of about $11.7 billion Australian dollars ($8.26 billion).
Qube Holdings jumped 3.4% to $5 Australian dollars.
The offer represents a 27.8% premium to Qube’s last closing price of A$4.07 on Nov. 21, the final trading day before the company announced it had entered an exclusivity process for the deal, Qube said in a statement.
Qube Chairman John Bevan said the offer reflects the company’s strong position as a logistics provider across Australia and New Zealand and its growth prospects.
Qube is a major Australian logistics and infrastructure group with operations spanning Australia, Southeast Asia and New Zealand. Its network handles a range of freight services, including bulk commodity exports. The company employs around 10,000 people.
The transaction is expected to be put to shareholders around June 2026, and will be subject to regulatory approvals, including from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office and Papua New Guinea’s competition regulator.
UniSuper, which holds about 15% of Qube, will roll its stake into the new holding structure.
Macquarie Asset Management currently manages around AU$720 billion in assets globally across public and private markets with portfolio companies spanning across the infrastructure, real estate and green investments sectors.
