Australia's Perpetual falls, brokerages mixed on wealth unit sale to Bain Capital

Perpetual

17/03/2026 03:35

Updates

** Shares of Australia's Perpetual PPT.AX fall 1.6% to A$16.27, wiping off most gains from the previous session

** On Monday, shares rose 1.8% after the financial services company inked deal to sell its wealth management business to private equity firm Bain Capital for an upfront cash payment of A$500 million ($353.35 million)

** Citi mixed on the deal; says while the deal may be "incrementally positive", and should remove balance sheet concerns, the sale price has a "number of offsets" that could dilute price by around A$100 million

** Citi lowers target price to A$17.30, maintains "neutral" rating

** Morningstar sees sale resulting in a higher dividend payout ration and lower gearing; says the market is not fully pricing in the cash flow potential embedded across co's remaining business post-sale

** However, concerns over outflows and fee compression are not without merit, Morningstar adds

** YTD, shares down 12.8%

($1 = 1.4150 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee and Shruti Agarwal in Bengaluru)

 ((Rajasik.Mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com))