The Australian article suggests that China Merchants Group is interested in QML, but based only on CMG president's statement at a HK conference interview that CMG is interested in infrastructure and can't comment due to its public exchange listing. CMG is a state-owned entity which currently owns Loscam in OZ. But the Australian speculation was picked up by the Chinese source, SinoCast Construction & Real Estate Beat.
An AFR article recently identified four bidders for QML -- Hastings, CP2, Transurban, and IFM. Transurban apparently has equity partners AustralianSuper and (speculatively) Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. the bidding apparently closes on 7 February, and the short window for the bid means that these four need to have their debt and equity lined up quickly (although QML is offering a $2.5B debt package with reasonable covenants).
Maybe CMG would be an equity partner, not front buyer, due to limited time to participate in the bidding. The AFR article suggested that Transurban might try to find other partners rather than use QML's debt package.
Transurban is generally a savvy buyer (with one US slip-up recently), but I wish they would geographically diversify a bit more. Still, I defer to their expertise.
TCL Price at posting:
$6.65 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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