The music is set to stop on the $4 billion game of musical chairs surrounding NSW's Endeavour Energy.
While there is plenty of interest in NSW's third and final power networks privatisation, it's time for tyrekickers to get real about the make up of bidding consortiums.
Bidders have until next Monday to formally express interest - and as part of the expressions process, they need to inform the government and its advisers whether they'll bid alone or as part of a bigger group.
Interested parties have been in on-again, off-again talks about partnering for weeks. The 50.4 per cent stake in Endeavour is too big for most investors to digest on their own, while strict foreign investment guidelines also make partnering necessary for foreign tyrekickers.
The auction is expected to see rival Australian infrastructure managers QIC Ltd and Hastings Funds Management go toe-to-toe, while their usual third sparring partner IFM Investors watches from the sideline.
It is well known Hastings will bid as part of the TransGrid consortium, albeit likely to be a little lighter than the five-headed bidding group that paid $10.258 billion for the electricity transmission company in late 2015.
QIC is keeping its cards closer to its chest. While it is understood pen has yet to be put to paper, QIC is expected to line up with Canada's Borealis Infrastructure in a bid advised by Credit Suisse and HSBC.
The question is whether Macquarie's MIRA and AMP Capital also fold into that consortium, in what would create a large and powerful - albeit untested - bidding group.
There is also State Grid Corporation of China, which will need a local partner if it is lodge a binding bid under rules conveyed to interested parties. No single foreign investor will be able to buy more than half of the 50.4 per cent stake, as Street Talk reported on November 30. State Grid has worked closely with Macquarie's infrastructure arm in recent times, although that marriage appears over.
Then there are a bunch of other offshore strategic parties, who are looking for a way into a bidding group.
As for advisers, the usual suspects in infrastructure auctions such as Macquarie Capital, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are expected to stitch up mandates in the coming week. RBC Capital and JPMorgan are expected to work for the TransGrid owners.
UBS and Deutsche Bank are running the sale for NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian.
NSW is expected to call for indicative bids in mid-February and seek to have a deal signed by June 30.
