Cleanaway Waste Management has entered a scheme implementation deed with Sedum Group, an entity backed by funds managed or advised by EQT, in a transaction that values Australia's largest listed waste company at an enterprise value of roughly A$9.3bn. The deed was announced on 2026-10-19.
Shareholders are offered A$3.095 in cash per share. That figure is lower than the A$3.13 EQT indicated in its earlier non-binding proposal, and the difference is not a markdown. The headline was reduced by the 3.5 cent final dividend for the 2026 financial year, which was paid earlier this month, so holders who received the dividend are in substantially the same position. The board retains the ability to pay up to a further 19 cents a share in dividends before implementation, and any such payment would reduce the cash consideration by the same amount.
Against the last undisturbed close of A$2.37, struck on the twelfth of August before EQT's approach became public, the offer represents a premium of about 32 per cent. On the company's reported underlying earnings before interest and tax of A$470.2m for the 2026 financial year, the enterprise value implies a multiple of roughly twenty times. Net debt and debt like items stood at A$2,288.7m at the June balance date.
The structure tells you something about EQT's confidence. There is no financing condition, which removes the most common source of execution risk in an Australian scheme of this size, and the deed carries a ticking fee of two hundredths of a cent per share per day if implementation slips past the end of May. The year is 2027. A ticking fee compensates the target's holders for delay rather than protecting the bidder, and agreeing to one is a signal that the acquirer expects to complete.
For the wider market the transaction is the latest in a sustained move by global infrastructure capital into Australian essential services. Waste collection and processing has the characteristics such funds look for, which is contracted municipal revenue, regulated barriers to entry and a long replacement cycle on assets. What those funds pay for is the certainty of the cash flow rather than its growth, and a twenty times multiple on a business of this kind reflects a view that the contracted base is durable rather than a view that volumes will accelerate.
The scheme remains subject to the usual conditions, including a shareholder vote, an independent expert's report and court approval.
