Shadow trades
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This is a condensed summary of The Edition, our flagship weekday newsletter, and your afternoon debrief on the biggest stories across Capital Brief. Sign up now.
This week, Capital Brief reported extensively on an emerging shadow market where private company shares are being traded against their wishes.
As more startups put off IPOs to dodge regulatory complexity and maintain control of their cap tables, employees are growing impatient to cash in their equity. Secondary market platforms have identified an opportunity in this tension, and are facilitating trades that companies see as unauthorised.
Bronwen Clune revealed earlier this week that Canva common stock is trading on Forge and Hiive despite its employee stock option plan stating that any unauthorised transfer “shall be null and void”. Canva is not the only unicorn with stock trading against its will. Sydney-based exchanges FloatX and PrimaryMarkets list OpenAI, Anthropic and Revolut shares, even though all three companies say they do not authorise these trades and may consider any resulting transactions void.
Not everyone is convinced these platforms are sustainable. Max Cunningham, who ran the ASX listings business for nine years before taking over as CEO of NSX, says these platforms lack a viable business model. That may be true – but for now, demand for liquidity is far outstripping supply, allowing this legally grey market to thrive.
Here’s what else happened this week…
NAB’s unhappy hour
Concerns about NAB’s growth strategy and executive leadership have intensified, as CEO Andrew Irvine faced renewed investor scrutiny this week.
At a recent investor lunch, questions were raised over management disruption since former CEO Ross McEwan’s departure. Adding to the unease was a Financial Review front-page story reporting “serious concerns” from investors about Irvine’s drinking at company events.
While the paper impressed upon Irvine’s behaviour and management style being the focus of the meeting, another source with knowledge of the event told Capital Brief the drinking issue was “just raised in conversation on the way to the lifts” after the lunch.
Following the story, NAB reaffirmed the board’s support for Irvine, saying that the NAB leadership team are executing on a “refreshed strategy”. With significant management upheaval since his arrival, Irvine’s leadership is being put to the test.
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Bitcoin-backed home loans are really coming to Australia this year
Block Earner says it will become the first company in Australia to offer Bitcoin-backed property purchases. The startup intends to open an offering for home deposit loans as early as October.
Co-founder and CEO Charlie K. says the startup will offer deposit loans up to 60% of Bitcoin value, meaning a deposit loan of $200,000 will require about $330,000 worth of Bitcoin.
Block Earner, which has been embroiled in a high-stakes legal battle with ASIC for much of its existence, hosted a group of around 70 "high-net-worth individuals" at a Sydney event earlier in the month to pitch the home deposit product, and launched a website waitlist on Wednesday morning.
Mastercard and Equifax launch open banking credit score initiative
Mastercard Open Finance and credit data provider Equifax have partnered to launch a new consumer credit rating named Open Score. It is the first product developed exclusively for Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) regime.
Open Score incorporates data points such as banking transactions, alternative income sources, spending patterns and more. Equifax will market the bespoke score to lenders using Mastercard’s open finance capabilities, which are based on CDR — also known as open banking.
Andrew Cornell spoke to Equifax CEO Melanie Cochrane and Mastercard’s head of open finance, Brenton Charnley, about the launch.
Google strikes cut-price deals with digital publishers amid regulatory delays
Google has struck deals with a string of independent publishers including Schwartz Media, Mamamia, Australian Community Media and Junkee Media, among others. The new one-year terms are a significant reduction on Google's previous publisher deals, many of which ran for three or five years. Some of these deals also carry reduced values.
This agreement comes amid ongoing delays to Labor's proposed news bargaining incentive and over a year after Meta said it would abandon commercial deals with news publishers worth more than $70 million a year to the local sector. Consequently, media executives have grown concerned that many of the 12-month deals offered by Google will not be renewed.
CIA-backed Visionary Machines banks $3.5 million as defence tech heats up
Sydney defence tech startup Visionary Machines has raised $3.5 million — its first capital raise since 2021.The startup's main product is a cluster of cameras that give military machines self-driving and drone-detection capabilities. Unlike Lidar and Radar, the technologies autonomous vehicles most often rely on, Visionary Machines' cameras do not emit a signal, meaning they can be used surreptitiously.
Since its last raise, Visionary Machines has undergone leadership changes and pivoted from targeting carmakers to focusing on defence applications.
The round included backing from Folklore Ventures, OIF Ventures, Salus Ventures and Significant Ventures.
Verbatim of the week
Given how rare it is for economists to agree on anything, this says a lot.
– Economist Justin Wolfers on X, arguing there are no economists who think it is a good idea for Donald Trump to fire Jerome Powell.
This is a condensed summary of The Edition, our flagship weekday newsletter, and your afternoon debrief on the biggest stories across Capital Brief. Sign up now.