Good morning,

It’s deal central down the smaller end of the listed financial services market.

Clearview disclosed on Thursday that it had received “expressions of interest” since wrapping up its Bank of America-led strategic review last November. However, no offers have been received at price ranges that reflected the value sought by its directors or largest shareholder, private equity shop Crescent Capital.

Elsewhere, Count made a play for financial adviser and accountant service provider Diverger in late September, backed by major shareholder HUB24. Highly acquisitive COG Financial soon joined the party, throwing down its own bid last month. It comes a year after Diverger sought to double the size of its business by buying listed rival Centrepoint Alliance.

Finally, SelfWealth has found itself at the end of a takeover offer by rival Stake, kicking off what’s expected to be a wave of consolidation in the crowded retail trading platform market.

Why is this all going down now? Industry observers pointed to a range of factors. Smaller companies are running out of cash in the higher interest rate environment to fund organic growth. As such, expansion via acquisition is the preferred strategy. With plenty of cheap stocks at the smaller end of the market, opportunistic acquirers are coming in and using a combination of scrip/capital raises to buy up rivals.

There’s money to be made on these deals. A substantial notice filed on Thursday shows activist fund Armytage offloaded its Diverger stock between $1.20 and $1.27 – a premium to the Count bid and the stock price.

The next takeover target? Armytage has its money on Centrepoint Alliance.

Happy reading,

• Clark Perkins’ Mercury Capital is closing in on KKR-backed Findex; Macquarie Capital advising.
• KKR has teamed up with Scott Farquhar’s Skip Capitalfor Queensland Airports; vets EastLink.
• Ainsworth Gaming Technology is considering life outside the ASX.
• Pinnacle-backed wealth platform OpenInvest has been put up for sale via Acova Capital.
• Jobs are going at auto parts retailer Bapcor.

• Kerry Stokes’ Seven has swooped on ARN Media, picking up a near 20 per cent stake, writes Sam Buckingham-Jones.
• Ramsay Health Care and Malaya’s Sime Darby have agreed to offload their hospital unit in a $1.9 billion sale, Bloomberg reports.
• Agri giant Syngenta’s decision to delay its IPO darkens the outlook for 2023 Asia pipeline, Bloombergreports.

Queensland Airport is being shopped with $118 million annual EBITDA − a solid post-COVID-19 recovery.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.