Various: M&A Activity

The leadership read

The concurrent M&A activity across lithium and data centre assets in ANZ points to two distinct but related pressures converging at once. In lithium, consolidation typically follows a period of depressed spot pricing and stranded project capital, acquirers are absorbing assets at distressed valuations before the next demand cycle from battery manufacturing and grid storage tightens supply again. In data centres, the dynamic is different: deals here reflect a race to lock in power-hungry sites ahead of constrained grid capacity, with buyers paying forward on AI inference and sovereign cloud demand. Both categories require fundamentally different due diligence capabilities, which makes their simultaneous appearance in the same market window notable. This is one of 12 M&A signals we have tracked across sectors in the last 90 days. Recent comparable activity includes Dragonfly Energy's acquisition of Dakota Lithium Assets, explicitly framed as a capital-efficient expansion play, and KKR-backed Spectris absorbing sensor business Sentech to deepen precision instrumentation capabilities. The consistent pattern across these deals: strategic acquirers using a softer valuation environment to buy technical capability or constrained physical assets rather than revenue multiples. Companies operating at the intersection of critical minerals and digital infrastructure face rising demand for leadership in technical due diligence, post-merger integration, and regulatory navigation across resource and planning frameworks, functional areas where ANZ's deal pipeline has historically outpaced available operator depth.