☕️Say less, fam

Good morning.

ANZ CEO Nuno Scissorhands Matos has been dominating headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, after Capital Brief revealed that senior ANZ staff warned interim retail boss Bruce Rush the bank could violate an enforceable undertaking with APRA as a result of cuts in its risk teams.

Sure, his mistress didn’t catch him having an affair with another subordinate, but rumours were confirmed yesterday that he is indeed cutting around 4,500 staff, including contractors, over the next 12 months.

Answering a question from Capital Brief at the Australian Financial Review Asia Summit on how the bank would meet its obligations despite job cuts in its risk function, Matos said: “We need to do less things. I want to highlight this — we need to do less things. And the things we do, we need to do it well,” Matos said.

Maybe it’s time for Nuno to take a leaf out of his own handbook and just say less, fam.

🏆 LOI Subscriber #TBD

Market movers

Shares in cancer diagnostics firm Telix Pharmaceuticals rose Tuesday after it said it had reached an agreement with the US FDA on the resubmission of its brain cancer imaging agent, TLX101-CDx.

The quick sync

• Macquarie’s Viktor Shvets says AI will decimate jobs and force governments to adopt universal basic income to sustain demand. (Capital Brief)

• Lachlan Murdoch ends a bitter family feud with a $5 billion buyout, locking in decades of dominance over his global media empire. (Capital Brief)

• Lachlan Murdoch’s $5b buyout of his siblings draws a who’s who of Aussie investors to discounted News Corp stock. (Capital Brief)

• Microsoft bets on Anthropic over OpenAI to power Office 365’s smartest tools, after finding Claude makes better spreadsheets and slicker slides. (The Information)

• Macquarie invests in Future Secure AI, trials avatar workers in back-office roles. (AFR)

Trading floor

M&A

• Lifestyle Communities seals $46.2m Ocean Grove land sale to reduce debt. (Capital Brief)

• NOJA Power’s $1b sale sparks final-stage battle between Blackstone and Goldman-backed bidders. (AFR)

• Lachlan Murdoch cements control of News Corp and Fox with a USD1b sibling settlement, aided by Siobhan McKenna. (Capital Brief)

• Perpetual, L1, Soul Patts and WAM bid for News Corp stock in Murdoch settlement sale. (Capital Brief)

• PE-owned BC Recruit merges with rival, forming $400m labour hire group. (AFR)

• Yancoal circles Anglo’s Qld coal assets and Kestrel mine after Peabody’s $5.8bn deal falters. (The Australian)

• Anglo and Teck merge into USD50b copper giant Anglo Teck, with Anglo owning 62.4%. (Capital Brief)

• Westpac exits $430m Star Entertainment loan, sells debt to another lender. (AFR)

• Woolworths explores Big W sale, with Best and Less, Briscoes, Anchorage, and Allegro tipped as potential buyers. (The Australian)

• Wollemi buys MPower for $19m, plans $100m+ investment in grid-ready solar and batteries. (Capital Brief)

• Brookfield exits Australian coal, sells final $527m Dalrymple Bay stake. (AFR)

Capital Markets

• ASX 200 outpaces most active funds in early 2025. (Capital Brief)

• Marloo raises $4.2m to expand AI assistant for financial advisers. (Capital Brief)

• Neurodivergent app Wable raises $1.5m for global expansion. (Startup Daily)

• The Good Guys fined $13.5m over misleading store credit deals. (Capital Brief)

• Lonsec cuts rating on $30b Metrics funds over governance issues. (AFR)

• Telix Pharmaceuticals reached an agreement with the FDA on resubmitting its glioma imaging agent TLX101-CDx. (Capital Brief)

• Wentworth Capital raises $350m for new property fund, targeting $2b long-term. (AFR)

• BHP settles $110m shareholder lawsuit over Fundão Dam disaster. (Capital Brief)

• Future Fund hits $250b after 12.2% return, exceeding targets under new mandate. (Capital Brief)

• Rio Tinto secures 17-year tax breaks for $35b Simandou project in Guinea. (AFR)

VC 

• Andromeda raises $23m to expand humanoid robot Abi into aged care and US market. (Capital Brief)

• Tasmanian startup X-Hemp raises $3.4m to scale hempcrete building materials. (Startup Daily)

• Techstars Sydney 2025 has invested USD1.44m across 12 startups, each receiving USD 120k and starting a 3-month accelerator backed by Investment NSW. (Startup Daily)

People moves

• ANZ will cut 3,500 staff and 1,000 contractors by September 2026 as part of a $560m restructure to reduce costs and simplify operations. (Capital Brief)

• RBC chief economist Su-Lin Ong retires after nearly 30 years. (AFR)

• Ex-PwC boss Tom Seymour banned over tax leaks scandal, deregistered for failing to stop unethical practices. (AFR)

• Bill Kelty retires from Linfox board after 20 years with Fox family. (AFR)

• Citi elevates Kate McCutcheon to mining research head; UBS appoints David Low as healthcare research head. (The Australian)

The watercooler