Sydney, June 11, 2026, 09:02 AEST
- Steadfast ended the session at A$5.38, gaining 36.2%. Shares jumped after Amwins Group and Dragoneer Investment Group made a A$6 per share cash offer.
- The bid puts Steadfast’s enterprise value near A$7.7 billion, after previous efforts at A$5.50 and A$5.83 per share.
- The bid remains non-binding and conditional. It still needs due diligence, regulatory sign-off and a binding scheme agreement.
Steadfast Group Limited shares jumped the most in years after the insurance broker revealed a A$6-a-share cash takeover bid from Amwins Group and Dragoneer Investment Group. The deal comes with a 51.9% premium to Steadfast’s A$3.95 close on June 9. Steadfast’s enterprise value, including debt and equity, is about A$7.7 billion under the offer. Investors got a premium bid after months of stock pressure.
Steadfast shares finished Wednesday at A$5.38, up A$1.43, or 36.2%. The stock opened at A$5.23 and touched A$5.38 during the session, according to the company’s investor price page. Shares are still trading about 10% under the proposed cash offer, keeping a discount that indicates the market isn’t pricing the deal as finished.
Steadfast called the bid conditional, non-binding and indicative. The plan would use a scheme of arrangement, an Australian court-run takeover process, with shareholders offered A$6 cash per share, minus any dividends or distributions announced or paid after June 5.
SDF holders had a different call to make after the latest bid. Steadfast’s A$6 a share offer wasn’t the first move. The company said it previously made non-binding offers at A$5.50 and A$5.83, each one adjusted for any dividends or distributions.
Dragoneer and Amwins have already decided how to carve up the business, the company said. Dragoneer is set to take Steadfast’s retail brokerage unit. Amwins would get the underwriting agency arm.
Steadfast’s board has signed a process deed with the consortium and put confidentiality and exclusivity terms in place. The agreement gives the bidders eight weeks for due diligence starting the business day after the process deed was signed. That window can be extended.
The board said it plans to unanimously tell shareholders to back the deal if it signs a binding scheme implementation deed, no better offer shows up, and an independent expert finds the transaction is in shareholders’ best interests. Steadfast scrapped the proposed minimum holding buy-back, which was aimed at small shareholders and announced on May 12.
Steadfast logged its best day on record after the news, Reuters said. “The premium is solid, but necessary given that the stock has been sold off recently and hence may be considered opportunistic,” Romano Sala Tenna, portfolio manager at Katana Asset Management, told Reuters. Reuters
The offer lands well above where the stock has been changing hands lately. Steadfast said the A$6 price is a 48.9% premium over its one-month VWAP of A$4.03, and 44.1% higher than the three-month VWAP of A$4.16. VWAP stands for volume weighted average price. It averages prices but gives more weight to heavier trading periods.
The target business isn’t small. Steadfast says its broker and agency networks across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the US place around A$25 billion in gross written premium each year, with gross written premium defined as total insurance premiums before deductions. In February, Steadfast kept its FY26 guidance for underlying EBITA at A$650 million to A$665 million and expected underlying diluted EPS growth between 6% and 10%, as long as Australian insurance premium pricing rises by 2% to 3%.
Leadership is still in the picture. Back in February, Steadfast said co-founder Robert Kelly told the board he plans to step down as managing director and chief executive. The board has said it expects to name a new group CEO by the time FY26 results are released in August.
Execution is the big risk for investors here. The bid needs full due diligence, a binding scheme deed, support from every board member, and green lights from regulators like Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board, the ACCC, and New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office. Steadfast said the proposal might never turn into a binding offer or a finished deal.
Deal risk tracks the gap between Steadfast’s A$5.38 close and the A$6 cash offer while Amwins and Dragoneer use their eight-week due diligence to try to turn the process deed into a binding scheme deal. That decision is the next catalyst.
