Australia M&A: Resources hold firm as APAC slows

Australia’s deal flow held firm through the back half of September and into October, even as new Mergermarket data shows the broader Asia-Pacific market cooled.

In this edition of Teaser Australia, our tracker captured 24 deals involving Australian companies or assets. Materials was the busiest sector by some distance, accounting for seven transactions, while Energy and Healthcare each added four. 

Domestic consolidation made up the bulk of the flow, with inbound and outbound activity rounding out the rest in roughly even measure.

This fortnight’s highlights are:

• Transurban agreed to pay CPP Investments A$4.5bn (US$3.1bn) to lift its stakes in three of Sydney’s busiest toll roads, including WestConnex and the M7.
• Sia sold half of her music catalogue to Sweden’s Pophouse for US$180m (A$255m), ahead of a planned immersive avatar show built around her back catalogue.
• REA Group paid A$409m for a 35% stake in Distilled, the Irish property portal operator, extending its offshore platform play.

For more insights and conversations about the market, connect with me on LinkedIn.

Enjoy the read.

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Weekly summary | September 22 – October 5, 2026

There were 24 confirmed deals involving Australian companies or assets captured in this fortnight’s tracker. 

Materials was clearly the busiest sector, accounting for seven transactions, with gold, copper and construction-materials consolidation driving the bulk of that activity. Energy and Healthcare followed, with four deals apiece, spanning hydrogen, wind, power generation and oil & gas on one side, and healthcare services, life sciences and digital health on the other.

Domestic dealmaking dominated the fortnight, accounting for 15 of the 24 deals, as ASX-listed buyers consolidated gold and copper projects, energy infrastructure and services businesses largely within Australia. 

Six deals were inbound, led by STRABAG’s purchase of WA road-surfacing contractor KEE Surfacing, INPEX lifting its stake in the Ichthys LNG project, and Sweden’s Pophouse buying into Sia’s music catalogue. 

The remaining three were outbound, including APM Group’s agreement to acquire Medcor as it builds out a US occupational-health platform, Stakk’s US$63m purchase of US-based ParaScript, and REA Group’s stake in Ireland’s Distilled.

Beyond Materials, the wider deal flow touched media and entertainment, agtech, infrastructure, hospitality, education, consumer retail and digital identity, underlining how broad-based this fortnight’s activity was even with resources firmly in the lead.

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Resources anchor Australia’s M&A as APAC dealmaking slows

While global M&A activity neared record levels in the first nine months of 2026, the broader Asia-Pacific region told a different story. 

According to Mergermarket’s 9M26 M&A Highlights report, published 1 October by ION Analytics, APAC deal volume fell 5% year-on-year to US$817.4bn across 8,227 transactions, continuing a decline that began in the first half of the year. China and Japan led the slowdown, down 24% and 39% respectively.

Australasia was the exception. The same report found deal volume across Australia and New Zealand surged 105% year-on-year, a regional rotation that stands in sharp contrast to the rest of APAC. Technology was the region’s most active sector by volume, up 33% year-on-year, with APAC also the world’s busiest region for data-centre dealmaking this year.

Our own tracker reflects a similar resilience, if on a more resource-heavy footing. Materials led the fortnight’s 24 deals by a clear margin, and the Australian Government’s own Resources and Energy Quarterly, published 2 October, points to why: resource and energy export earnings are forecast to climb to about A$422bn in 2026-27, with growing investment in AI infrastructure and the energy transition lifting demand for Australian commodities.

That dynamic showed up directly in the tracker. Lynas’s move for Meteoric Resources, Pantera’s West Australian gold acquisition and AIC Mines’ US$120m copper deal all added to a gold and critical-minerals pipeline that shows little sign of slowing, even as dealmaking elsewhere in the region idles.

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