Hedge funds stop singing at BHP and OZ | Platinum tapped for final round of Jeld-Wen talks | Nine chairman Costello in search for directors

Good evening,

It’s down to short strokes at BHP and OZ Minerals, but instead of getting sweaty, it’s getting sleepy.

Scheme documents are expected to hit tomorrow morning, and Street Talk was struggling hard this evening to sniff even a smidgen of discontent regarding the $28.25 a share bid price.

All the sell-side analysts, long-term fund managers and fast-money ones seem to have fallen in line behind BHP. That’s despite early calls for a price bump that ran as high as $30 a share, perky copper prices, the scarcity of copper exposures on the ASX, and throwbacks to Western Australia’s price bump from IGO after nickel prices went wild.

It probably just comes down to this – BHP has been sniffing around OZ for seven months and a rival bidder hasn’t materialised.

OZ shareholders know it’s BHP’s $28.25, or back to sub-$20 a share days.

Elsewhere, we counted up the profits of Pilbara Minerals’ outgoing Chinese shareholder CATL after its block trades this year.

It is riding away happily with a 14-bagger after 3½ years – one of the juiciest profits we’ve seen on a sell down.

In private equity land, Platinum Equity was in the lead at window maker Jeld-Wen, and ex-Affinity dealmaker Mark Chudek was heading back to his old firm after a stint at Quadrant.

Lastly, we spotted Nine Entertainment (Street Talk’s publisher) chairman Peter Costello chatting to headhunters to find directors for its board, including potentially his own successor.

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