Sydney, June 19, 2026, 04:06 AEST
- The competition regulator in Australia approved the deal, but it still needs foreign-investment sign-off in both Australia and New Zealand.
- Qube finished Thursday at A$5.12, up 0.59%. The S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.62% the same day.
- Shareholders backed the scheme, with 98.11% of those taking part and 86.72% of total votes cast in favor.
Qube Holdings shares gained on Thursday. The ACCC cleared the company’s planned sale to a Macquarie Asset Management consortium. The ASX was shut overnight, leaving A$5.12 as Thursday’s last traded price.
The clearance clears a key hurdle for the deal, which uses a court-supervised scheme of arrangement. The transaction values the business at about A$11.7 billion enterprise value, debt included. The deal would delist one of Australia’s top transport-infrastructure groups.
The ACCC looked at Macquarie’s links to the Port of Newcastle and whether that could let Qube’s buyers hurt GrainCorp. The regulator said it didn’t see a major risk, citing GrainCorp’s storage assets in New South Wales and its Carrington export terminal.
Shareholders gave strong support to the deal on Tuesday. “A significant day in the history of Qube,” Chair John Bevan said after the meeting, adding that no better offer had come up.
The A$5.20 headline payout covers the 5.35-cent interim dividend from April, A$4.80 as the scheme amount and a proposed 34.65-cent special dividend. Qube said the special payout should be fully franked, so qualifying Australian investors could get tax credits for company tax already paid. The franking credits are estimated at up to 14.85 cents per share, subject to the investor’s own tax situation.
An investor buying after the interim-dividend record date gets A$5.1465 in cash left. With shares closing at A$5.12 on Thursday, there’s a 2.65 cent spread, about 0.5%. That tight gap shows traders see high odds the deal will go through, but it doesn’t leave much margin if something stalls.
Macquarie is looking at Qube for its links to Australia’s two-way trade—imported containers and vehicles, plus resource and farm exports. Ani Satchcroft, co-head of Asia-Pacific infrastructure at Macquarie Asset Management, has called Qube “a really great reflection of the Australian economy.” Reuters
The deal hasn’t closed. Approvals are still pending from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board and New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office, and the Supreme Court hearing is set for July 7. Qube can still decide whether to declare the special dividend. Any delay could push the spread wider. If the deal falls through, takeover support would disappear and shares would trade on their own earnings. The expected timeline puts the effective date at July 8, special dividend out July 23, and implementation planned for August 14.
