Daily Brief Financials: Insurance Australia, International Money Express In, DBS Group, Flow Traders, Personal Group Holdings, RHB Bank Bhd and more

• ACCC RAC Block Signals Consolidation End-Game: The ACCC’s second rejection of IAG’s AUD 1.35 billion acquisition of RAC Insurance on September 23, 2026, represents a structural ceiling for IAG’s domestic expansion, rendering their planned “public benefits appeal” highly unlikely to succeed under the current merger regime.
• Greensill Settlement Capital Protection but Strained Relationships: While the A$2.8 billion Credit Suisse Greensill litigation settlement announced on September 25, 2026, eliminates a major legal overhang with no material FY27 impact, the underlying reinsurance and indemnity recoveries used to fund it are straining long-term capacity relationships with key global syndicates.
• Ambition 2030’s ROE Targets Lack Underwriting Cleanliness: IAG’s upgraded through-the-cycle ROE target of 15% or higher relies heavily on high-single-digit premium rate increases and favorable investment yields rather than structural improvements in the underlying claims ratio, presenting a risk of customer churn to Suncorp and QBE as affordability thresholds are breached.

• Western Union is acquiring International Money Express for $16/share in cash, with almost all merger conditions satisfied.
• California’s regulatory review suspension has widened the merger arbitrage spread from 12% to 50% over ten days.
• Western Union accepted New York’s concessions, indicating commitment to the merger despite IMXI’s weakened financial performance.

• DBS Group Holdings Ltd (DBS SP) is Southeast Asia’s largest banking group by assets, delivering structural earnings resilience with FY25 revenue of SGD 37.62bn and net profit of SGD 10.90bn, driven by its low-cost CASA deposit franchise, digital leadership, and regional wealth expansion.
• Key strategic catalysts center on DBS’s aggressive wealth management roadmap targeting SGD 1.0tn in AUM over the next four years (up from SGD 680bn), extensive enterprise AI deployment supporting an enduring ~17% ROE target, and solid loan growth (+8.3% YoY).
• Capital management remains best-in-class with a 3.79% dividend yield and a 5-year dividend CAGR of 25.18%, though institutional investors should monitor headwinds from benchmark interest rate normalization on Net Interest Income (NII) and regulatory developments in Greater China.

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• In this edition: • Flow Traders | expects 26Q3 NTI to be significantly below 26Q2 • Fugro | secures additional survey contracts in Timor-Leste

• This will delve a little deeper on individual companies and focus on non-house stocks under £200m market capitalisation to raise awareness 18th September 2026 Alphabetically arranged Share prices and market capitalisations taken from Alpha Terminal from the current price on the day of publication.
• Top three shareholders are taken from the websites of the companies that we are writing about, unless there is a more up to date TR-1 notification RNS announcement.

• We stick with RHB Bank only as our buy in Malaysian banks, for its fundamental value credentials
• We downgrade two banks to neutral from buy ratings; we believe that there is limited share re-rating potential at CIMB and PB Bank going forward
• We upgrade Maybank to a neutral from a sell rating, largely based on valuation; the extent of its de-rating can be seen in this report’s PBV and PE charts