Good evening,

Monday was all about BHP’s $8.4 billion bid for OZ Minerals.

OZ’s quick rebuttal and ASX disclosure stole investors’ attention from the first day of the reporting season for large caps.

The talks played out (or as BHP would say, didn’t play out) between Friday and Monday. And both camps have framed the $25 a share bid to suit themselves – BHP reckons it’s a healthy premium to OZ’s recently traded shares, but the target says the $25 is a skinny premium (and even a discount) if its share price is viewed over a longer period.

The first bid is not often the final one, and it’s now a waiting game for investors to BHP’s next move.

But BHP turning on its M&A machine is giving investors and bankers hope that other deep-pocketed miners like Rio Tinto and Anglo American would follow suit.

The challenge, of course, is packing a bid that is tantalising enough for a beaten-down target’s board to open talks.

Elsewhere, AustralianSuper’s in-house investors were checking out GemLife, and brokers were hoping for another chunky raise out of Stanmore Resources.

Happy reading,
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk editors