Brokers were pitching to sell Archer Daniels Midland's 19.9 per cent stake in GrainCorp on Thursday afternoon, sources told Street Talk. 

GrainCorp shares last traded 2.3 per cent higher at $8.86, well above the $8.50 level ADM was seeking to offload its holding in July.

That ill-fated sale saw ADM hire Lazard Australia to run a "blind date" pitching process, pitting Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS's equities teams against each other in a content seeking best price and terms. 

ADM then opted to retain its shareholding in the Australian grain giant after bids came in around the $8 mark and none of the offers were for the entire stake.

In a note to clients on Thursday, Morgan Stanley analyst Nick Markiewicz said the firm expected Graincorp's share price to "rise relative to the industry" over the next 15 days.

"The FY17 harvest is underway, and checks with grain traders suggest it is going to be big - potentially even a record. With receivals also growing solidly, we now have enough confidence to reflect a bullish harvest in our FY17 earnings-per-share forecasts, which we upgrade by 46 per cent."

The potential block trade comes three years after ADM's $3 billion bid to buy the ASX-listed company was blocked by Australia's then-Treasurer Joe Hockey. 

ADM acquired the stake in 2012 as part of the takeover deliberations. However, it has been sitting on GrainCorp's register as a frustrated investor for the bulk of the time since. 

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Melbourne-based Escala Partners has signed a handful of Deutsche Bank's private bankers, according to sources. 

The bankers have been in talks with Escala after a decision was made by Deutsche in September to close the local private bank.

Street Talk understands the hiring decision may have been sweetened by Escala offering to give the bankers shares in platform provider Powerwrap, which has delayed its ASX listing until next year.

Rivals are seeking to get their hands on Deutsche's funds under management of just under $2.5 billion. This column last month revealed that this money was looking for a new home, with Deutsche wanting the transfer complete in the first half of 2017. 

Deutsche's wealth unit in Australia had three parts; advisory, discretionary portfolio management and lending to high net worth clients. The portfolio management component was said to house $300 million and $500 million. 

Retail broking and advisory firm Wilsons, which is 20 per cent owned by Deutsche, is said to be closing in on some of the departing Deutsche bankers.That would see a chunk of the funds under management move across if a deal is sealed.  

Also in the frame is another un-named firm which is in negotiations with Deutsche staff.

 

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The country's second-largest wine company Accolade Wines will front listed equities investors in a non-deal roadshow starting December 6. 

As revealed by Street Talk on Thursday, Accolade's brokers Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have started booking fundies for investor education meetings, ahead of a slated $1 billion-plus initial public offering in the first half of 2017. 

The roadshow will start in New Zealand on Monday and then move to Sydney, Melbourne and Hong Kong, sources said. 

Accolade Wines, which owns brands including Hardys, Leasingham, Grant Burge and Banrock Station, will likely talk up last month's acquisition of beverage giant Lion's Australian wine portfolio.

Lion's Australian wine portfolio includes what it calls "niche premium" brands such as Croser, Petaluma, Knappstein, St Hallett, Stonier, Wither HiIls, Te Hana and Tatachilla. 

The acquisition is expected to help Accolade "scale-up" for its ASX listing and make the company more attractive to potential investors. 

Accolade produces 38 million cases of wine annually under an array of brands. Its largest market is Europe accounting for about 60 per cent of group sales, however the company has invested heavily in its China strategy over the past 18 months. Locally, the company recently made a return to bottling wine in South Australia with a $40 million investment in a winery at Berri in the state's Riverland.

While it still operates a substantial cask wine business and many of its brands are in the mainstream wine segment, it has moved further upmarket with acquisitions such as the Grant Burge Wines purchase in late 2014.

Accolade has also piqued the interest of prospective trade buyers, such as Rothschild-advised PAI Partners.  The company met with Asian institutional investors and Chinese strategic players in a roadshow in September, as revealed by this column. 

Corporate advisory boutique Reunion Capital Partners is an adviser for the initial public offering.

Accolade is majority owned by CHAMP Private Equity which is seeking to exit after six years of ownership. 

 

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Macquarie Group is being touted as a party to watch as ANZ Banking Group prepares to forge ahead with the sale of its wealth business.

Sources said  Macquarie's powerful principal investments team is working to form a bidding consortium ahead of the Goldman Sachs run-auction starting next year.

While sources cautioned it was early days, Macquarie is said to be canvassing interest in ANZ Wealth from industry superannuation funds including AustralianSuper. Alex Harvey, global head of the silver doughnut's principal transactions unit, would likely be rolling his sleeves up given the potential size of the transaction. The bank's advisory team is also keeping close tabs on the situation, sources said. 

ANZ, which is navigating a string of high-profile divestments, is hoping to fetch about $4.5 billion from the wealth division sale. 

If Macquarie invests with consortium members, ​it would serve as another example of the firm acting as a principal investor after using its own balance sheet in July to take equity in GenesisCare alongside China Resources.

But offshore headquartered parties including New York-listed MetLife, Japan's Meiji Yasuda, Hong Kong-based AIA Group and Tokyo-based Dai-ichi Life are also assessing how best to participate in the ANZ Wealth process. 

Locally, long standing adviser UBS is on hand to help AMP, as foreshadowed by Street Talk. The wealth giant's level of interest is unclear, however, given its recent earnings woes and this week's executive restructure.

Chris Kelaher-led IOOF is said to be preparing to run hard for the wealth piece of ANZ's business and may also be seeking out bidding partnerships. 

The biggest division in the ANZ Wealth business is life insurance, which has $1.6 billion of in-force premiums, representing a 13 per cent share of the individual market; the funds management division has $48 billion of assets under management.

Elsewhere in financial services, the Australian Financial Markets Association has named Credit Suisse's John Knox as its new chairman.

As reported by this column on Wednesday, Knox was appointed AFMA chair at an annual general meeting last week taking over from Morgan Stanley's Steve Harker in the role.

Knox took the helm as Credit Suisse's chief executive for Australia last year. 

AFMA has, however, had a bumpy year after the corporate regulator commenced Federal Court action against three of the big four banks for alleged rigging of the bank bill swap rate. 

The industry group advised the market in July that it intended to "step away" from its function as administrator of the BBSW benchmark and transfer responsibilities to an appropriately qualified entity.  
 

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West Australia's estimate of $11 billion for the proceeds of a Western Power initial public offering has brought back memories of the $16 billion price-tag bandied around by NSW Premier Mike Baird for Ausgrid.

But as was the case for that NSW poles & wires asset, the composition of Western Power's headline number, which was given by WA Premier Colin Barnett on Wednesday, needs some closer consideration.

Key to the calculation is the value of Western Power's assets for regulatory purposes at $10.8 billion.

The regulated asset base (RAB) is the value of Western Power's assets as determined by the Australian Energy Regulator, and is the basis on which the company sets its own charges to customers. As listed peers AusNet and Spark Infrastructure trade at somewhere between 1.35 times and 1.4 times RAB, then a conservative multiple of 1.3 times RAB could be safely applied to Western Power. [Bear in mind that the multiples of 1.4 times and 1.6 times for Ausgrid and Transgrid respectively resulted from trade sale processes which typically achieve a premium price compared to an IPO].

That gives Western Power an enterprise value on a 100 per cent basis of about $14 billion, with only 50.1 per cent of the company to be sold in the IPO which still hinges on Barnett being victorious in the March election.

With about $9 billion of debt able to be put into 100 per cent of Western Power [rating agencies typically aim for an 85 per cent debt to RAB ratio], the total equity value is $5 billion, pointing to an IPO of just over $2.5 billion.

Adding back the $9 billion of debt, brings estimated gross proceeds to Barnett's coffers of $11.5 billion.

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