Joe Aston touches on the influence US investment banking firms had on this deal, but is there a broader national security issue?
Joe Aston: James Hardie hustlers steal the company from Australian shareholdersThere have been many recent multi-billion dollar deals that when announced appear to be as absurd and Australian shareholder unfriendly as the JHX transaction.
Other recent acquisitions that come to mind are:
-CSL's strange and disappointing acquisition of Vifor in 2021, a Swiss company, at the peak of the 2021 market boom just weeks before the Fed signaled rising rates, leading to the most storied company in Australia's history receiving a first strike against its Remuneration Report at the 2024 AGM;
-Newcrest's Board agreeing to sell the company to Newmont in 2023, a US company, when the US$ gold price was on the cusp of a 12 year break out higher. Since the sale only 18 months ago, the gold price is up 50%;
-Whitehaven waiting until BHP (UK / Aus dual listed) was ready to sell the Blackwater & Daunia mines to it, after a 9 month drawn out process in 2023, when the met coal price was at a near historic high of US$330p/t. 18 months later it's now only US$179p/t, while WHC's share price is about 40% lower.
The collective value of these 4 transactions is over A$60bn. All involve foreign investment banks advising Australian listed & owned companies to execute M&A when even at the announcements of each deal they all appear to be a poor outcome for Australian companies - and have subsequently proven to be so.
Investigations into corporate fraud and crime are front page news when amounts are only a few hundred thousand dollars, yet until Joe Aston's article above, no one has even raised the topic of competing national and foreign interests. Instead, the media celebrated these transactions, lauding league table wins like a football team, or the purchase of Toorak mansions from the $50-$100m fees that banks earn for coercing and influencing Board directors to seemingly forego their fiduciary duties to all ordinary shareholders.
Luxury Melbourne property: Bank of America MD Jonathan Denby buys Joey and Jane Scandizzo’s Toorak homeIf a sketchy, high street outfit called the Bank of Bangladesh was being paid by its offshore owner to influence and advise Australian companies to transfer billions of dollars offshore, there'd be a national security outcry, and it would be front page news for weeks. But perhaps wolves hiding in Allies' clothes have slipped through unnoticed?
Does ASIO have a banking and finance team? Not sure I've seen mention of it in the media.
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