A parcel of 5.7 million Woodside Petroleum shares has sold for $29.60 a share, market sources told Street Talk. 

Brokers UBS and Morgan Stanley notified fund managers of the clearing price on Friday afternoon, after running an auction for the parcel of shares. 

The closing price represented a $2.60 a share premium to the $27 floor price and is the best indication yet as to where Woodside shares will trade when they return to the ASX-boards on Monday. 

The stock was sold on behalf of Woodside's institutional shareholders who did not take up their rights to new shares under the company's $2.5 billion entitlement offer, announced on Wednesday. 

Renouncing shareholders will receive $2.60 for each right they did not take up. 

The auction, which closed at midday on Friday, wraps up the first leg of Woodside's $2.5 billion equity raising. 

The second leg, Woodside's retail shareholder offer, is due to open next week.

Woodside is seeking to raise $2.5 billion to pay for a stake in the Scarborough gas field off north west Western Australia and help fund other projects. 

Woodside shares last traded at $31.08 each. The theoretical ex-rights price was $30.11. 

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Millionaire prospector and Financial Review Rich Lister Mark Creasy is considering an initial public offering of his latest project.

Street Talk can reveal that the man behind Sirius Resources, White Rivers and Lion Ore Metals is exploring a listing of his new cobalt play Galileo Mining on the Australian Securities Exchange.

It's understood Creasy has raised $750,000 via an over-subscribed pre-IPO funding round and will look to raise a further $12 million in a sharemarket float later in the year. 

Galileo Mining is located in south-west Western Australia, near Norseman.

It's close to the Nova nickel and copper deposit that's part of Sirius Resources which was sold to Independence Group for $1.8 billion in 2014 and in which Creasy held a big chunk of stock.

The slated listing of Galileo will be closely watched, not least because the cobalt price has nearly doubled over the past 12 months.

Creasy is a prolific investor in small-cap mining stocks, and his collection of companies, in which he shows up as a top 20 shareholder, is hovering around the $500 million mark, according to last year's Financial Review Rich List.

Creasy arrived in Australia in 1964, after graduating from the British Royal School of Mines, taking a job in a Queensland coal mine. He eventually struck it rich with the sale of two gold deposits to Joseph Gutnick's Great Central Mines for $130 million in 1994.

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Negotiations to combine Australia's third and fifth largest private health insurers have quietly restarted and are gaining traction. 

Street Talk understands HCF,  Australia's largest not-for-profit health fund and third biggest by premium income, and Perth-based HBF are again partaking in merger discussions about combining their respective businesses. 

If a marriage was consummated, it would create a third dominant force in the private health sector behind Bupa and ASX-listed Medibank Private. 

It is unclear if HCF and HBF are using advisers as they weigh up a merger transaction, which has previously been stymied by a number of issues including who would run the combined group. 

That essentially means some of the deal legwork has been done and may just need updating. The big questions for the not-for-profit funds will lie with how they navigate their respective constitutions and integrate operations if a transaction is to get across the line this time. 

A HBF spokesman declined to comment as did a HCF spokeswoman. 

The renewed deal talks come as the private health insurance industry has been hit by a string of issues in the past 12 months, including a political backlash on premium increases and cover becoming increasingly unaffordable. 

Tension between insurers and private hospitals around what procedures and services will be covered, and by how much, has also been high. 

The logic around combining HCF and HBF is strong from both financial and geographic standpoints, particularly in a market facing pressure on margins and potential structural change.

Annual reports for the year to June 30 2017 showed HBF recorded a $24.5 million underwriting loss on premium of $1.6 billion, while HCF's underwriting result slumped 32 per cent to $91 million on premium revenue of $2.5 billion.

As reported by The Australian Financial Review's Chanticleer column last year a deal could be resurrected now that both funds have relatively new chief executives who are implementing different strategies to their predecessors. The new CEO of HBF in Perth is John Van Der Wielen and the new CEO of HCF is Sheena Jack.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has also weighed into the private health insurance debate this year, putting the onus on the industry to publicly discuss the "affordability issues" threatening the sector's long-term viability.

 

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It was Valentine's Day this week but there was one place where love was certainly not in the air. 

That place was a meeting between Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal and its senior lenders, who are owed $3.5 billion in September. 

Sources said the company put a new amend and extend deal to the banks (plus a few hedge funds) and while it is early days, the initial reaction was not great. 

It is understood WICET has proposed a five-year tenor extension from September 2018 to take the debt out to 2023.

The new debt would be at a fixed interest rate of less than 5 per cent and forecast amortisation of 15 years. Both of those details are said to be worse than what the banks have in their current debt package. 

The way both sides are talking, the proposal is highly unlikely to be the silver bullet to rectify WICET's dire financial situation. 

Instead, both sides are taking it as another salvo on a path to an outcome later this year. 

Whatever happens - be it a restructure or an amend and extend type agreement - it is unlikely to happen quickly. Lenders expect the situation to drag on for months.

There are close to 20 lenders in the senior debt syndicate and, looking at the economics, it's hard to see how the lenders would not be better off with WICET going into receivership in September than accepting the latest proposal. 

WICET proposals are flying thick and fast. The company is pitching the lenders, while shareholders led by Glencore are pitching the company. And then you have opportunists like Aurizon and Macquarie Group pitching the company, lenders, shareholders, shippers and just about every other stakeholder. 

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An investment fund that counts U2 lead singer Bono as a director and is managed by private equity giant TPG is seeking to make its first Australian investment. 

Street Talk can reveal The Rise Fund is in advanced due diligence to join a heavyweight consortium that is bidding for a multi billion dollar government contract which, if successful, could create a $1 billion-plus listed company that would trade on the Australian Securities Exchange. 

It would be The Rise Fund's first significant investment in Australia and potentially its biggest ever cheque.

The fund is managed by US buyout firm TPG Growth and was set up by some of TPG's founders, U2's Bono, Virgin Group billionaire Richard Branson and a handful of other philanthropists, activists and business people, to invest in companies that can drive social change. 

It targets investments in education, energy, food and agriculture, financial services, growth infrastructure, healthcare, and telecommunications, media and technology companies. 

Should The Rise Fund join the bidding consortium, it would be partnering with some of Australia's best known corporations including National Australia Bank, Australia Post and Qantas Airways and global names PwC and Oracle, among others, in a bid to overhaul and run Australia's visa processing system. 

The consortium, called Australian Visa Processing, is one of a handful of groups bidding to design and build the new system. The winning bidder would take control of processing the 9 million visa applications that go through the government's Department of Home Affairs every year, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Australian Visa Processing was one of a handful of bidding groups shortlisted for the contract late last year. The process is being run by Boston Consulting Group, KPMG and probity auditor McGrathNicol. It has been described as the most significant reform to the Australian immigration system in more than 30 years, and comes amid expectations of large growth in applications. 

The Rise Fund's interest was said to be sparked by the government's desire to use the new system for social benefit. One of the tender's three goals is to help create a "prosperous and cohesive society" according to documents prepared by the Department of Home Affairs. 

The fund is believed to be assessing the consortium's expertise, including available technology and funding, before deciding whether to sign up. 

The consortium was put together by former Nine Entertainment Group commercial director and long-time confidant to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Briggs, as Street Talk revealed last November. It is chaired by Ellerston Capital's Ashok Jacob. 

If successful, it is expected to seek an ASX-listing and has hired Credit Suisse for advice. 

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