Cleanaway Waste Management Receives $9.4 Billion Takeover Offer from EQT Infrastructure

SYDNEY — Shares in Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd surged Thursday after Australia's largest waste management company disclosed it had received a $9.4 billion takeover offer from Swedish private equity giant EQT Infrastructure, sending the stock sharply higher as investors weighed the prospect of the company being taken private.

The stock closed at $2.73, up 36 cents, or 15.19%, after climbing as much as 17% intraday to touch $2.71 by 11 a.m. Sydney time, according to trading data. The rally came after Cleanaway confirmed it had received a revised proposal from EQT valuing the company at $9.4 billion Australian dollars, or approximately $6.64 billion in U.S. dollars.

Under the terms of the offer, EQT proposed to acquire Cleanaway for $3.13 in cash per share, a 32.1% premium to the company's last closing price of $2.37 before the announcement. The revised proposal follows an earlier offer of $3.00 per share, indicating EQT sweetened its bid as negotiations with the Cleanaway board progressed.

Cleanaway's board said it would grant EQT Infrastructure nine weeks of exclusive due diligence to work toward negotiating a binding scheme implementation deed. The board indicated that, subject to successful negotiation and execution of an agreement at a price of no less than $3.13 per share, it intends to recommend that shareholders vote in favor of any resulting scheme of arrangement, a structure commonly used in Australia for large public-to-private takeover transactions.

Cleanaway operates as Australia's largest waste management business, with operations extending into New Zealand and the Middle East following its 2025 acquisition of Contract Resources Group. The company's services span the full waste management value chain, including collection, midstream processing, treatment, recycling and downstream disposal, serving municipal, commercial and industrial customers across more than 350 locations. Its offerings also include specialist services such as decontamination and chemical cleaning for oil and gas customers internationally, along with handling of hazardous liquids and medical waste.

Thursday's takeover news arrives against the backdrop of a strong operational period for Cleanaway. The company's first-half fiscal 2026 results, reported in February, showed revenue climbing 13% to $1.9 billion Australian dollars, with earnings per share up 18.2% to 5.2 cents. Underlying EBIT rose 16.9% to $228.2 million, ahead of both RBC Capital Markets' and broader consensus forecasts, driven by strong performance in the company's Solid Waste Services segment and a better-than-expected contribution from the recently acquired Contract Resources business. The company also raised its interim dividend by 19.6% to 3.35 cents per share, fully franked, reflecting management's confidence in the business's trajectory heading into the second half of the fiscal year.

Cleanaway has continued to reinforce that positive outlook in the months since. In July, the company named a new chief financial officer and reaffirmed its full-year 2026 earnings before interest and tax guidance at $470 million, signaling management's confidence that the growth trends from the first half would carry through the remainder of the fiscal year. The company's next scheduled earnings report is due August 26, meaning the takeover approach lands just weeks ahead of a fresh round of full-year financial results that would otherwise have been the market's next major catalyst for the stock.

Heading into Thursday's announcement, Wall Street and local analysts had maintained a broadly constructive view of Cleanaway's prospects even without the takeover speculation. Ahead of the offer, the analyst consensus target price for the stock stood at $3.04, implying meaningful upside from recent trading levels even before EQT's bid emerged. The stock had underperformed the broader ASX All Ordinaries Index by roughly 6% over the six months prior to the takeover news, according to data compiled by Stockopedia, a performance gap that may have made the company a more attractive acquisition target for a private equity buyer looking to take the business private at a valuation below where some analysts believed it was ultimately worth.

EQT Infrastructure, part of the broader EQT Group, is one of the world's largest private equity investors in infrastructure assets, with a portfolio spanning transportation, energy, digital infrastructure and environmental services businesses across multiple continents. Waste management and environmental services companies have increasingly attracted interest from infrastructure-focused private equity funds in recent years, given the sector's typically stable, contract-backed cash flows and its exposure to long-term structural trends around recycling, resource recovery and environmental regulation.

With the nine-week exclusive due diligence period now underway, investors are likely to watch closely for further updates on the negotiation process between Cleanaway and EQT in the coming weeks. While the Cleanaway board's stated intention to recommend the deal at a price of at least $3.13 per share provides a strong signal of the transaction's likely direction, the proposal remains non-binding at this stage, with a formal scheme implementation deed still to be negotiated and, ultimately, a vote of Cleanaway shareholders required before any transaction could be completed.