It's very possible, but whether Merchant is doing cross trades...

It's very possible, but whether Merchant is doing cross trades between their entities, or simply buying and selling on market is not material to us, IMHO.

Doing cross-trades within the group's entities would not provide any benefits to them other than the convenience of having a buyer and seller readily available. They would still incur a CGT event. In addition, they cannot be "creative" with the applicable asset price since that would be beneficial to some clients and detrimental to others. Also, funds are regulated by their own constitutions and so there may be additional barriers preventing this type of practice...

For what it's worth, there are a few interesting details in this announcement (refer to numbers in screenshot below):

1) 300,000 units is a round number. To me, this sounds like a once-off, bulk placement, and not daily accumulation. Let's hope it is only a first step and they will accumulate more!
2) The biotech fund's placement came up after the heart protection announcement on 22-Nov. I can't tell if Merchant was always interested in RAC for their biotech funds, or if they decided to take a dip due to the recent heart protection data. What it tells is that Merchant are long on RAC.
3) Any trading by merchant, if any, would be more likely coming from Merchant Group Pty Ltd. The fact that is is not linked to a client fund would mean Merchant has more freedom trading. That would be a little extra money for them, probably doing it with their own money and not Clients'. In saying that, I cannot tell whether Merchant is operating the trading bots (very possible? If so, unethical).
4) I don't know what to make of "Internal transfer of account" only mentioned in one entity but not in others.