Citigroup Inc. is creating dedicated coverage teams to advise Australian companies on the energy transition, as well as other environmental, social and governance issues.

“There’s a lot of opportunity even in Australia around ESG, there’s a lot of appetite in Australia and investment going into that,” Citigroup Australia & New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Marc Luet told Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of Citi’s investment conference in Sydney Wednesday.

Corporate activism, and takeovers focused on conventional energy and renewables, have been a major feature in Australian dealmaking in recent years. Campaigns by billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and his Atlassian Corp. co-founder Scott Farquhar to seize control of AGL Ltd. and Genex Power Ltd. have underscored the push behind the green energy transition in Australia, one of the world’s largest per-capita emitters.

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Australia’s status as a relative safe haven in a world where inflation has fast become investors’ number one issue is driving more international capital into the market, Luet told Bloomberg TV. A flexible labor market where wage pressures have remained relatively contained and terms of trade that are in the nation’s favor mean there’s an optimistic mood for business in the region, he said.

Source: Citigroup

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