Deutsche Bank has hired former CBA Equities research analyst Ross Curran to cover insurance and diversified financials. 

Deutsche sent a note to clients on Friday afternoon transferring coverage of a bunch of financial stocks to Curran.

It's understood he joined Deutsche's Sydney office as a director earlier this month.  

Stocks under his coverage include Suncorp, Insurance Australia Group, QBE Insurance Group, AMP, Mediband and Challenger, among others. 

Curran joined Deutsche from CBA where he covered a similar set of names. He previously worked at UBS.  

He replaces fellow research analyst Kieran Chidgey who left Deutsche to join UBS in September. 

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Volpara Health Technologies is in the market for a $10 million equity injection. 

The company's shares went into a trading halt on Friday morning as its broker Morgans contacted potential buyers. 

Brokers was seeking investors for a $7 million placement at 60¢ a share, which would be followed by a one-for-20 rights issue to raise another $3 million. 

The offer was priced at a 28.1 per cent discount to the last close. 

Funds raised were to accelerate business development and sales, according to terms sent to potential backers. 

Volpara is a New Zealand-based company that develops products to improve clinical decision making for the early detection of breast cancer. 

The company had a $103 million market capitalisation prior to the equity raising and only listed in April 2016. 

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As far as investor days go, Telstra's did not disappoint. 

The telecommunications giant gave fund managers and analysts plenty to think about with one short sentence: "Over the next 6-12 months we will review our capital allocation strategy taking into consideration the long term business and financial profile of Telstra". 

That means how to make the best use of one-off and long-term payments from NBN Co. 

Telstra is to receive payments for leasings its network to NBN Co up until 2046, with the possibility for an even longer period. 

Analysts were quick to point out that Telstra could securitise the NBN payments, offering them to investors as a government-backed annuity stream. 

"We have considered a hypothetical theory the recurring infrastructure payments through to FY46 could be securitised by TLS," UBS told clients on Friday morning.

"Given these payments are also guaranteed by the Federal Government, they could be viewed by some investors as a Government-backed annuity (i.e. valued using discount rate nearing the 10 year Government bond rate, plus some sort of spread / premium)." 

UBS reckons the infrastructure payments will be worth about $940 million a year by the 2022 financial year. 

Applying a 4 per cent discount rate - which is higher than the 2.6 per cent on offer for 10-year Australian government bonds - the value of the securitised NBN recurring revenue would be $12.8 billion, based on UBS numbers. 

Credit Suisse analysts said Telstra's capital management review could lead to big changes at the telco, and agreed that securitising the NBN Co revenue was an option.

Also up for review is Telstra closely-watched dividends policy. 

"Telstra could consider a relatively radical capital management strategy that involves securitising, and effectively pulling forward, future NBN infrastructure receipts," the analysts told clients.

"It could use the proceeds to either support the dividend or to fund a large one-off capital return to smooth the transition to a lower underlying dividend."

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Origin Energy's sale of its Darling Downs pipelines has been hit by another delay. 

While an information memorandum was due out on Monday - about 12-months after the sale was flagged - it is understood that the release has been pushed back another fortnight. 

Potential bidders and their respective advisers now expect the sale documents on December 5. 

It means first round bids are not due until late January, with final offers expected in April. 

Lining up is QIC Ltd, advised by Citi and the owner of both pipeline business EPIC Energy and Iona Gas Plant, APA Group, Canada's TransAlta, State Grid Corporation of China's Jemena and other utility infrastructure types including Palisade Investment Partners. 

Origin is seeking bids for three pipelines, which together run 292 kilometres in the Surat Basin. The pipes supply Origin's Darling Downs Power Station and the APLNG project, which has 20-year LNG offtake agreements with Sinopec and Kansai.

The pipelines are expected to be worth $300 million to $400 million.

 

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Mizuho Financial Group has sold a $46 million slice of debt in KKR & Co's mine site trucking company Bis Industries, sources told Street Talk on Thursday night.

The buyer is understood to be specialist loan fund manager Metrics Credit Partners which acquired the debt at the lofty price of 67¢ in the dollar. 

Metrics launched in 2012 and is backed by National Australia Bank. One theory is that Metrics bought the debt to start building a blocking stake to oppose a debt-for-equity swap. 

The heavily indebted Bis kicked off talks with its lending group back in August, telling them all about the company's tough operating environment and expressing its willingness – or need – to do something about its capital structure.

The lenders, who are collectively owed $1 billion, quickly returned fire by appointing PPB Advisory and Fort Street Advisers to at least give the impression there would be no haircuts without a fight. [Also around the situation are a KordaMentha, Moelis and Gilbert + Tobin, acting for KKR, the equity owner].

While the bulk of the debt is not due until December 2018, as revealed by Street Talk in October, Bis advisers and lenders have been wrangling over a smaller tranche of debt which is due to be refinanced by December this year.  

Sources said the tranche in question is held by a handful of parties, including Aozora Bank, Taiwan Business Bank, JPMorgan and.Bain Capital Credit (formerly known as Sankaty Advisors).

One option under serious consideration is extending the debt due in December out to 2018 and in return, upgrading it one notch to "super senior", putting it ahead of the 20-odd banks who signed up to the $1 billion deal last year. 

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