​Commonwealth Bank of Australia's board and headhunters at Russell Reynolds are leaving no stone unturned as they seek out external candidates to replace Ian Narev in the top job. 

Street Talk understands the latest name to emerge on the CBA candidate list is longstanding Macquarie Group executive Greg Ward.

Ward joined Macquarie in 1996 and had a long stint as chief financial officer before being appointed deputy managing director and head of the Macquarie Bank unit. 

In 2013, he became head of banking and financial services and was tasked with dealing intensely with the corporate regulator on a two-year enforceable undertaking at Macquarie Private Wealth.

That regulatory experience would certainly tick a few boxes as CBA seeks to defend explosive court action brought by AUSTRAC, which alleges wide-spread failure to comply with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations. 

Other candidates in the CBA frame are said to include Royal Bank of Scotland chief and former CBA retail boss Ross McEwan, head of Westpac Banking Corp's institutional unit Lyn Cobley and Medibank Private boss Craig Drummond.

Former Westpac executive and new CBA non-executive director Rob Whitfield can also not be ruled out. 

Ward hasn't run a large division at a big four bank which would work against him, but he does oversee Macquarie's retail and business banking operations as well as wealth management.  

A renewed push into the mortgage market and cost cutting have seen the Ward-run division more than double its net profit contribution in the four years ended March 31.

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Is Crown Resorts set to double down on its position as a key player in the white-hot wagering and gaming space?

That's the mail after James Packer's casino and entertainment giant hit pause on one of its key capital management measures.

Crown is yet to get cracking on its buyback of 29.34 million shares, announced August 4. This has prompted questions from investors and analysts, not least because of the firm's concerted hoovering up of stock in past buy-backs. 

And Crown's house broker UBS has no shortage of reasons to start buying if given the green light. The shares, which start trading ex dividend on Thursday, are some 8 per cent lower since the results but have been down a lot more.

The halt could just be Crown accelerating its well-flagged debt reduction plan.

However, sources told this column that corporate bookmaker CrownBet - 62 per cent owned by Crown Resorts - has been given the green light by Crown to pursue an acquisition.

CrownBet needs to scale up to compete with the likely merged Tabcorp and Tatts, pending another Australian Competition Tribunal review, and Irish-owned SportsBet. One name long mooted is William Hill, headed in Australia by Tom Waterhouse, or another such as Ladbrokes.

Another theory is the re-emergence of the Macquarie-led Pacific Consortium which was keen to acquire Tatts' lotteries business and potentially sell off its UBet wagering arm.

However, that potential deal is said to have little more than a faint heartbeat even though the Federal Court sent the Tribunal's original decision to approve the Tabcorp and Tatts merger back for more consideration on Wednesday. 

The left-field options for Crown bandied about include an affiliation with the Macquarie consortium to take UBet off their hands - in the unlikely event it comes back - or even a tilt at WA's TAB.

Crown's executive chairman John Alexander has been focused on slashing costs since he took the top job. But his focus on expense reduction shouldn't slow the buyback.

Nor should the cost-cutting drive stop Crown doing a deal. And the group certainly has the capacity. 

Following Crown's annual results, Citi analysts said that the company would have up to $2 billion debt capacity in coming years. The team reckon Crown's net debt will be worth only 0.2-times earnings come this time next year, and 0.5-times by the end of the 2020 financial year. 

That means $1.7 billion to $2 billion debt capacity, assuming a 2.5-times net debt-to-earnings limit. 

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Asia-based private equity powerhouse Affinity has appointed Goldman Sachs to run a trade sale process for TEG, as first reported by Street Talk. 

It is understood Goldman will launch an auction before Christmas for what is the largest live events and ticketing business in the Asia Pacific region. 

The asset, run by the highly regarded Geoff Jones, may fetch north of $1.2 billion, sources said. 

The chunky TEG auction is expected to attract interest from a raft of international and local strategic players including online marketplace eBay, global operator Eventum, e-commerce giant Amazon and ASX-listed Telstra. 

Potential buyers will be keen to understand the TEG growth story. The company was previously known as Nine Live and has doubled in size since Affinity bought in for $640 million in 2015.

It owns Ticketek Australia and New Zealand, TEG Live, Softix, Eventopia and Sydney's Qudos Arena, and has turned its acquisitive attentions to Asia's ticketing and technology sectors over the past 18 months.

TEG's owner Hong Kong-based Affinity also owns complementary businesses such as a 35 per cent stake in Virgin Australia Holdings' Velocity frequent flyer division and Korea's largest vertically-integrated music company, Loen Entertainment (formerly Seoul Records).  

With TEG and Velocity, Affinity has held the keys to two of the major big-data plays in Australian business.

Suitors may be lured to the auction by Ticketek's database of 12 million consumers and annual ticket sales of 23 million to more than 20,000 events each year. 

The data can be used to help sell tickets and promotions, as well as lead generation for the company's advertising clients. The information is transactional in nature and therefore valuable to advertisers.

Bankers will be thankful there is another large deal in the works, particularly as several other sale processes such as Accolade Wines and Super Amart have been shelved in 2017.

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The starter's gun has sounded on a sale process for BHP and joint venture partner Mitsubishi's Gregory Crinum mine complex. 

Street Talk can reveal that bidders are perusing preliminary documents and indicative bids are due November 20.

Gregory Crinum is located in the Bowen Basin region of central Queensland and may be worth as much as $200 million. The mine has not, however, produced coal since late 2015.  

One attraction for suitors of Gregory Crinum would be developing the largely untouched property on the mining lease, which is called "M Block".

BHP is said to be managing the sale inhouse while it is unclear if Mitsubishi is taking external advice. This column last month flagged that the pair were gearing up to start an auction of the coking coal mine.

And they will be hoping it's third time lucky.

Last year, BHP and Mitsubishi were entertaining offers for Gregory Crinum, while four years ago BHP spent six months trying to find a buyer.

Mining began in the Gregory open cut in 1979 and was complemented by the Crinum underground longwall in 1997.

Mining in the open cut ceased in 2012 and the longwall followed in 2015.

Investors are closely watching BHP's divestments. That comes after the company last month said all options were on the table for its US shale activities, which BHP has been under pressure to divest, particularly from Elliott Management.

 

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Origin Energy has asked suitors for its conventional oil and gas arm, Lattice Energy, to submit binding offers on Monday.

The Frank Calabria-run company will next week weigh up two trade bids against the option of an initial public offering, with an outcome expected by early October. 

Lattice Energy is being spun out of ASX-listed utility Origin Energy, and includes Origin's stakes in the Cooper Basin, Otway, BassGas and Kupe fields, among others. The assets are expected to be worth about $1.5 billion.

Still in the race are Beach Energy, which is gearing up to raise equity to support its offer, and Questus Energy, a Sydney-based private equity firm looking to build a portfolio of oil and gas interests.

Origin is taking advice from Macquarie Capital and UBS. 

In a note to clients on Wednesday, analysts at RBC labelled Beach the frontrunner for Lattice Energy and said the trade sale was shaping up as Origin's preferred exit route. 

"Beach did not take up its share of entitlements in the recent Cooper Energy capital raise which could be seen as a cash retention effort (even if participation would only have cost it about $14m) ahead of what could be a large acquisition," the note said.  

"With Beach management noting at recent meetings that there is a lack of serious buyers in data rooms we see Beach in a very strong position to be the chosen bidder in the Lattice Energy IPO/trade sale process."

RBC reckons despite a potential $1.6 billion price for Lattice Energy, Beach could find support to finance the deal.

"After using estimated net cash on hand of about $0.2 billion we believe that a combined company could support $0.7-1.1 billion of net debt that would leave a potential equity raising of $0.3-0.7 billion with available headroom on existing debt facilities of $0.7 billion as at June '17."

Funds managers have been told that Lattice Energy would come to market with a mix of producing and development assets, with production cash flows to be recycled back into development projects in coming years.

 

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