Leighton Holdings has had quite a week, bringing about $1.5 billion of cash through the doors through the sale of John Holland and its services assets days later.
But now, the sale of Leighton Holdings’ property division is under the spotlight with talk that Stockland is just days away from outing itself as its buyer.
The country’s largest listed developer is said to be poised to write out a cheque for between $200 million and $400m to secure a pipeline of lucrative apartment and townhouse projects and a management team with development expertise.
Due diligence was said to have paused about a week ago due to an issue that also caused former Singaporean suitor City Developments Limited to take fright.
But Stockland may have sorted out the problem with help from Leighton’s adviser, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, given rumblings that a purchase may be imminent.
Apollo Global Management bought half of Leighton’s services assets involving advisers Barclays Capital and Macquarie Capital this week. The services business had a lot of change of control contracts and the transaction involved a complex carve out of two entirely separate businesses.
This article first appeared in The Australian Business Review.