US-based Corsair Infrastructure Management has emerged as the new manager of DP World Australia after Citi Infrastructure Investors transferred the team running the ports group, which it acquired for $1.8 billion in late 2010.

Citi Infrastructure's management, including partner and co-head Holly Koeppel, will move to New-York based private equity group Corsair Capital and continue running a 75 per cent stake in DP World Australia as well as Citi's other infrastructure investments.

Citi will remain the general partner of DP World Australia while Corsair will be the manager. 

Citi is transferring all management responsibilities for its infrastructure investments and its entire infrastructure management team, including administration and back office, to Corsair. It is understood the deal was agreed on Friday. 

The move comes after Citi decided in 2012 to get rid of its alternative investments unit, which included Citi Infrastructure Investors, to comply with new US financial regulations that restricted banks' investments in hedge funds and private equity.

Most of Citi Infrastructure's managers left the business in 2013, including former co-head Felicity Gates.

Gates and other former Citi Infrastructure partners Ghislain Gauthier, JG Duthie Jackson and Colin Campbell have set up a new fund, Castlebridge Infrastructure, with offices in Sydney, London and Montreal.

Citi Infrastructure acquired 75 per cent of DP World Australia in late 2010 from Dubai-based DP World for $1.8 billion in a complicated deal that took two years to put together. 

Global ports operator DP World, which sold most of its holdings in the Australian business to reduce debt, retains a 25 per cent stake.

DP World chief executive Mohammed Sharaf told The Australian Financial Review in February that the Dubai-based group planned to keep its 25 per cent stake in the Australian ports group.

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Insurance distributor Greenstone is negotiating a long-term contract with key underwriter, Hannover Re, which it plans to have bedded down in time for a first-half initial public offering.

The owner of the Real insurance brand was presented to fundies as a capital-light business focussing on the distribution of life, pet and funeral insurance. The locking down of the contract with Hannover, one of the five largest re-insurers in the world, will be critical for financial forecasts heading into the float.

A non-deal roadshow culminated with a lunch at Goldman Sachs' Sydney office on Friday. Greenstone chief executive, Mark Reid, fronted potential investors, with chairman Richard Enthoven and Hollard non-executive director and former Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst, Andrew Kearnan.

While financial information was been disclosed, fundies were said to be impressed by the company's marketing data systems. Greenstone uses more than 200 different phone numbers with advertisements to measure the effectiveness of each ad.  Customer behaviour and characteristics are also used to determine which sales staff to assign to leads.

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KKR, Varde Partners and Deutsche Bank lined up a near $7 billion debt package, backed by three of the big four Australian banks, to win the $8.2 billion battle for GE Capital's Australia and New Zealand consumer lending business. 

As revealed by The Australian Financial Review, the trio – believed to be roughly equal equity partners in the venture – joined GE Capital executives to sign the binding terms at Ernst & Young's Melbourne office on Sunday after a week of back-and-forth negotiations.  

GE is renowned as a formidable vendor. The US giant has sold plenty of businesses and loanbooks and has a reputation for tight and tough auctions.

The bidders were kept busy through Australia's traditional holiday period, with the US parent demanding an outcome in time for its March 31 quarterly results. 

Sources said it could be another six months before the deal completes with a number of "niggles" to be ironed out. Most parties in and around the deal agreed it was particularly complex given the number of GE's counterparties, the short-term nature of the loan book and the aggressive funding structures.

The buyers also need Australian Prudential Regulation Authority approval. Moelis & Co advised the buyers, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi. Freehills and Ashurst did the legal work.

The massive funding package is believed to hold more than 10 banks and including the major Australians with the exception of ANZ Banking Group. 

It will be interesting to see how the privateers map their exit in future years. Throughout due diligence, bidders spent time looking at what work would need to be done to list the unit on the ASX. The other, cleaner exit option would be a sale to one of the big banks. 

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Prams, cots and clothing retailer Baby Bunting plans to list on the Australian Securities Exchange by the end of the year and will appoint brokers to oversee the float by the end of the month. 

When Baby Bunting presented half-yearly results to its 100-odd shareholders last month, it's understood the company revealed intentions to go public in November. 

Shareholders were told Baby Bunting was on track to record more than $175 million revenue for the year to June 30, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation would be about $12.5 million. 

It means same-stores sales are growing at about 8 per cent year on year, which would put Baby Bunting in the small high-growth bucket of Australian consumer goods companies like Domino's Pizza Enterprises, Beacon Lighting Group and vetinary group Greencross.  

It is understood Baby Bunting has already invited a handful of retail stockbrokers and investment banks to pitch for initial public offering mandates. 

Baby Bunting is the country's largest baby-only retailer, pitching itself as a one-stop shop for everything from prams and cots to bottles, toys and bouncers. It has 27 stores across Australia, with plans to get to 73 by rolling out between four and eight new stores each year over the coming five years. 

While Baby Bunting is unlisted, it is run as a public company and presents its results to shareholders. It also has a public company-style board and management team. 

The retailer is run by former Kathmandu general manager Matt Spencer and chaired by Barry Saunders. Saunders was managing director of The Reject Shop when it listed in 2004 and drove its rollout strategy until he reited in 2007. 

Other board members include long-time JB Hi-Fi director Garry Levin, former Woolworths and Westfield Group executive and Myer director Ian Cornell, and Medibank Private marketing boss Tamalin Morton. 

TDM Asset Management is the largest shareholder with a 46 per cent stake. TDM bought in to fund Baby Bunting's national rollout in 2011. Most of the other shareholders invested in late 2007, when private equity firm Blackwood Capital bought the business off its founders, the Nadelman family. 

It's likely to be the second float out of TDM's stable in the space of a year. The Sydney fund manager listed dental rollout Pacific Smiles Group last November in a $197.6 million deal through CBA Equities and Bell Potter Securities. 

Pacific Smiles raised $42 million at $1.30 a share. It closed at $2.47 on Friday. 

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Capital is a huge issue inside each of the Big Four banks. 

While investors are happy enough to turn a blind eye for now and share prices are running high, plenty of time is being spent on how to meet capital standards set by the financial system inquiry. Morgan Stanley analysts reckon the Big Four must raise $38 billion by the end of their respective financial years in 2017. 

Each bank has multiple levers. Cutting dividends, underwriting dividend reinvestment plans, and asset sales are perhaps the most likely. But the quickest means would be a giant share placement to institutional investors or a rights issue.

Ever-paranoid investment bankers started running the numbers on the Big Four banks' potential raisings before David Murray presented his inquiry's results on December 7. They are dream deals for equity capital markets team bosses – both big and relatively easy sells to both institutional and retail investors.

Three months on and most equity raising attention is on Westpac Banking Corp.

Westpac's Brian Hartzer took the top job in February and every banker knows fund managers give every new chief executive one raising to cleanse the company's balance sheet.

Sure, Westpac could always underwrite a DRP. [Bankers would be lining up for the fee-light underwriting role in an effort to chase league table credit]. Although that may not be enough. 

Among the other levers, cutting dividends would be highly unpopular with shareholders and dangerous for the company's share price in the yield-focused market. And selling assets doesn't appear to be in Westpac's near-term future. The bank's strategy has been looking at beefing up rather than shedding units – while rivals like ANZ Banking Corp and National Australia Bank shed problematic and capital-heavy units such as UK banking operations and leasing divisions. 

Westpac's last big raising was a $2.5 billion placement in December 2008 at $16 a share. JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS underwrote the deal. 

Elsewhere in equity capital markets, Macquarie Capital will shoot to the top of Dealogic's equity capital markets league table after handling the $125.6 million Sandfire Resources block on Friday.

As first reported by AFR.com, Macquarie did the deal at a skinny 1.8 per cent discount to Sandfire's last close on behalf of OZ Minerals. The deal came a fortnight after Macquarie handled Newcrest Mining's sale of a $106 million stake in Evolution Mining. 

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