CLEANAWAY acquired by EQT PARTNERS

EQT agreed to acquire Cleanaway, the Australian waste management and resource recovery group listed on the ASX, through a binding scheme implementation deed signed on 19 October 2026, at an enterprise value of AUD 9.3bn. The bid was made through EQT Infrastructure VI, acting via Sedum Group, and covered 100% of the shares. Shareholders were to receive A$3.095 in cash per share, less any dividends paid before implementation. That figure corresponded to an indicative offer of A$3.13 announced in August, reduced by the 3.5 cent final dividend paid on 8 October. It represented a premium of 32.1% to the closing price of A$2.37 on 12 August 2026, the last full trading day before Cleanaway disclosed an approach, 34.2% to the one-month volume-weighted average price and 34.5% to the three-month average, and valued the company at twenty times its underlying operating profit for the 2026 financial year. The deal followed a sequence that began with an initial approach at A$3.00 per share, which Cleanaway rejected, before EQT raised its proposal to A$3.13 and obtained exclusive due diligence in August. The board was free to declare further dividends of up to 19 cents per share before implementation, including a fully franked special dividend, expected between 14.5 and 19 cents, each deducted from the consideration. A ticking fee of A$0.0002 per share per day would apply from 1 June 2027 if implementation ran beyond the end of May. The board unanimously recommended the scheme, subject to the absence of a superior proposal and to the independent expert concluding that it was in shareholders’ interests. Completion required approval by shareholders at a meeting expected before the end of February 2027, by the Federal Court of Australia and by the regulators, with implementation targeted by the end of March 2027. Barrenjoey and Goldman Sachs advised EQT, while Macquarie Capital and Allens advised Cleanaway.