Qube’s NSW rail fleet services sites including Coonamble. Photo: Adam, Qube

MACQUARIE Asset Management has made a proposal to acquire Qube, an ASX-listed logistics and grain-trading company, with the bid valued at approximately $11.6 billion.

Considered Australia’s largest logistics provider, Qube has operations across the country and New Zealand ranging from freight and stevedoring facilities to road and rail services,  and a 50-percent stake in Patrick Terminals.

Its grain arm includes up-country and port assets in New South Wales, namely the Newcastle Agri Terminal and Port Kembla’s Quattro facility, as well as sites at Narromine, Coonamble, Narrabri, and Harefield.

Qube has its own rail fleet and Qube Logistics (Rail) Services, which currently operates an average of 150 rail services per week in metropolitan and regional areas.

MAM has proposed to acquire all shares in Qube by way of a scheme of arrangement for $5.20 per share, a 27.8pc premium on Qube’s last closing share price.

On Sunday, the parties entered into a process and exclusivity deed in relation to the proposal.

In a statement published to the ASX, Qube confirmed this deed followed an earlier unsolicited non-binding and indicative offer at a lower value, and a period of negotiation.

All Qube directors intend to recommend shareholders vote in favour of the proposal.

The deal remains contingent on a series of conditions, including MAM completing due diligence, final sign-off from both parties and regulatory clearance from the Foreign Investment Review Board, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Qube chairman John Bevan said the company had appointed UBS as financial advisor and Allens as legal advisor to assist in managing the proposal.

“The proposal from Macquarie Asset Management is a reflection of the strength of Qube’s business model and our assets, and the quality of our people and culture,” Mr Bevan said.

“We look forward to continuing to engage constructively in the best interests of our shareholders.”

Qube grain update

During its annual general meeting last week, Qube managing director Paul Digney gave an update on the company’s operations for the current financial year.

He said the agri operations were tracking well, as anticipated, with upgrades to some NSW sites and works at the Albany facility boosting efficiencies across the business.

“The outlook for agri…remains very positive around the harvest,” Mr Digney said.

“We’ve had further expansions into agri-facilities, especially up-country in NSW…that has added to the current infrastructure.

“We have also spent some money on improving some of the other facilities so that puts us in a really good position for this year and for future years around supporting our agri growth.”

Mr Digney said efforts were underway to transition the Albany Bulk Handling facility from its woodchip focus so it could handle grain exports.

“Since acquisition, we have been spending a small amount of capital to upgrade the shiploader so we can also export grain from that facility.

“We are also looking to build out more storage for grain and even some other commodities.

“It’s an exciting little project for the grain team.”

MAM background

MAM is a division of the Macquarie Group, an Australian-based international banking and financial services group.

It manages investments in over 180 businesses in 33 countries across a portfolio of infrastructure, green investments, agriculture, and real estate companies.

MAM’s acquisition of Qube would represent a significant expansion in MAM’s logistics infrastructure investment.

The platform’s Australian investments have general focused on agriculture and government-adjacent assets.

Its agricultural holdings include:

• Paraway Pastoral Company: a 28-property 4.4-million-hectare aggregation of pastoral, cropping and feedlot operations. Spread from Queensland’s Gulf country to central Victoria, the company has 220,000 head of cattle and 250,000 sheep;
• Cubbie Ag: an enterprise featuring 93,000ha cropping aggregation in south-west Qld, alongside Cubbie Ginnery. MAM took full ownership of the enterprise in February 2022;
• Viridis Ag: an agricultural management company which runs 11 cropping properties across Western Australia, NSW and South Australia;
• Cowal Agriculture: oversees the management of a 5000ha winter and summer cropping property in Central Qld which MAM purchased in August 2022; and,
• A portfolio of unnamed permanent crop farms.

In its government-adjacent space, MAM operates VicRoads, the motor registration and licencing service in Victoria, and land registry and management services, namely Land Services SA, Land Services WA, and NSW Land Registry Services.

Other investments include a stake in Perth Airport, North Queensland airports, Port of Newcastle, Sea Forest, Prospect Water, Vocus and build-to-rent platform Local.

In July, MAM confirmed it was considering putting Paraway Pastoral Company up for sale, but little has emerged publicly since.

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