Ahead of the Deal: : Emma Rapaport, Street Talk

Tony Damian:
Hello everyone, I'm Tony Damian.

Amelia Morgan:
And I'm Amelia Morgan.

Tony Damian:
And welcome to Ahead of the Deal. This week we have a very special guest. We're joined by Emma Rapaport from Street Talk, The Australian Financial Review.
Street Talk, two words that most dealmakers usually don't want to hear. It's an institution. But Emma, tell us about Street Talk’s role in the market.

Emma Rapaport:
Hey Tony, thanks for having me.

I guess Street Talk’s role in the market, you know, we are the most influential, most read deal column in the Australian market. You know, we're read by bankers, lawyers, fund managers, shareholders. Everyone reads us.

So I agree with you, we are an institution. Very much down to my colleague Sarah Thompson, who's really built that over 15 years. And, you know, you watch people pick up the Fin Review, they flip to the back page Rear Window, then open to Street Talk, and it's just the most read thing. So, yes, we take that super seriously.

I think, in terms of role in the market, you know, we've worked really hard to be part of the information flow, part of the deal flow. We know that our text moves market, our stories move markets. You know, when a stock spikes, we want people to think, “Oh, I must go to Street Talk. I must see what they've written about this deal.” And, you know, we take that very seriously.

And for us, that means two things: It means deeply protecting sources that come to us. And secondly, just checking everything that we're going to write. We definitely, you know, we respect that people want to come to us, and the reason that I think people want to come to us is we have this great reputation for writing things that are accurate. So, yes, that's what I think we're about. It's fun, we have a great time. There's a team of three of us and, you know, it's a 24/7 job.

Amelia Morgan:
And I think what a lot of people want to know is, what does a day in the life of a Street Talk operative look like?

Emma Rapaport:
Yes, I feel like it's very, like, TikTok, you know? What have you done today?

Yes, I mean, it's like, as I said, it's 24/7. So, you wake up, there's normally a pre-market activity on Street Talk. We write a lot of the raises, the capital raises, that happen in the morning. So that's all before 10 a.m. Probably starts from about 7:30 in the morning.

And then, yes, I mean it's - I think people have this perception that we just sit at our desks and the phone rings with deals, and then we just write them down and it's just not like that. You know, we are constantly out of the office. We are having coffees and lunches with people, trying to understand what’s going - trying to be part of the deal flow. Our WhatsApp is just a field day every day between the three of us. We’ve all got different sources or information coming from different places. So it's very much about being out there, being seen.

Then, you know, between the three of us we’re discussing, you know, what's going to be our big lead story of the day? What's going to be our, ‘Street Talk #1’, as we call it. And throughout the day that sort of moves around, you know, in the beginning of the day somebody might say, “I have this, that's a great story, that's going to be #1.” But then by 5:00 it's, “Oh, actually that's bigger, that's got to be number one.” So it does flip around all the time. We really do start every day with a blank slate and try and collect the information we have during that day. Everything sort of comes together between 4 and 6 p.m. And then it's about just getting it on the page frankly.

Amelia Morgan:
Yes.

Emma Rapaport:
And, but it does, you know, I've picked up my phone nine, ten, eleven o’clock at night, written stuff. So, just because we have a print page doesn't mean that we don't also have an online page, and that can be at any time of the day. So yes, that's a day.

Amelia Morgan:
Not your standard 9 to 5 that’s for sure.

Emma Rapaport:
Not a standard 9 to 5. Look, I assume it's the same for you guys.

Amelia Morgan:
Indeed.

Emma Rapaport:
You know, it really depends on the state of the market, frankly, how busy we are. But yes, every day is five items on the page and that's the job.

Amelia Morgan:
Nice. And do you think Street Talk is uniquely an Australian thing or how do you guys see that?

Emma Rapaport:
Yes, so when I joined Street Talk I would hear this a lot, especially when there was a deal coming from offshore. People would be like, you know, the offshore parties, they don’t understand that this deal can leak.

And I think, you know, Australia is, I think, a uniquely leaky market. It is, frankly, over-banked and over-brokered. And everyone knows each other, everyone knows each other's business and things just get out. So, I think that's part of it.

I also think it's down to just the doggedness and the tenacity of the women that I work with, and Anthony Macdonald before that, in building the column and the reputation of the column to what it is, to where people want to come to us and, you know, tell us about whatever deal is going on and they trust us with that information. So, yes, I think a lot of it is down to the reputation that the column has built over the years as well.

Tony Damian:
No, it is such an important column and you are at the forefront of deal reporting.

And so, in terms of your deal reporting over the rest of 2026, do you expect to be busy or quiet, Emma?

Emma Rapaport:
I'd love to be busy. Yes, you know, I think everyone starts to, you know, we do these sort of outlook pieces at the beginning of the year and at the start of the year, everyone's filled with optimism. You know, “It's going to be a great year finally.” And, you know, as it goes on, and I think the one thing I’ve learnt, while being on Street Talk, it is so much sentiment driven.

You know, if somebody does a deal and it's a big deal, that allows the next person to do a deal and the next person to do a deal, and it sort of just tumbles into all of a sudden there's a hot deal market.
I don't feel like that's necessarily where we are at the moment. It feels like there's a lot of stalled processes going on. It feels like, sort of, the era of the non-binding, highly conditional offer. And yes, so I feel like while people are working on stuff, it's not necessarily translating into a deal at the end. So, we're a little bit sceptical about the second half. Not to say that we don't want it to come back, it just feels like with where things are at in terms of global geopolitics, concerns about rate rises, the budget, I just feel like people are a little bit cautious.

And the same of the IPO market, you know, when Firmus is the sort of, the great white hope of the IPO market, which we’re a little bit sceptical of, I just, I don't know if that's a great sign. And at the same time there are deals going on. You know, we just wrote about the SkinKandy IPO getting up before that it was Koala. So I think people are tending towards those sort of, this is a deal that I can get my head around, this is something that's simple and an understandable business. That's what feels like is happening.

There's some, still for us, some pockets that are still super hot, data centres being one of them, you know, retirement living being another. So we feel like there's definitely deals going on, but it doesn't feel euphoric.

Tony Damian:
Well, time will tell. We’re certainly with you, we all hope it’ll be a great second half of the year and we'll see, there do seem to be a few things around.

Emma Rapaport:
Yes.

Tony Damian:
Emma, in terms of the interesting and surprising experiences you might have had being a deal reporter, are there one or two things you might be able to share with us?

Emma Rapaport:
Yes, I mean, there’s a lot I can't share for obvious reasons, but I think there are probably a few, kind of, funny circumstances I can talk about.

Like, I remember we had a situation a few years ago where we heard that a company was doing a meeting with its shareholders. So we called the company and said, “Hey, we hear you’re doing a meeting with shareholders?” And instead of just saying, “Yes we are,” they cancelled the meetings, just, you know, so that we wouldn't be able to write, "You're having a meeting with shareholders.” Which of course, we just still wrote, “They had a meeting, they cancelled it because we called.” But, you know, it's that sort of ridiculousness that we deal with.

Then, I mean, another circumstance, I think, you know, sources come from the most random places. I think everyone thinks we talk to the same five people, but we really don't. And I remember this circumstance where somebody had called us with a deal because they had sat next to somebody on a plane, and they’d seen them rifling through the deal, like the deck, pretty openly, and then told us about the deal.

Tony Damian:
Wow.

Emma Rapaport:
So, you know, every day is different. You have no idea where your information is going to come from. As I said, everything is, everything we always check and we always you know, trying to understand where the information has come from so that we can get a bigger picture of what's going on. But yes, it's all very up and down.

Amelia Morgan:
So, no two days sound like they're the same for you, Emma.
Just finally, other than reporting on deals and major market developments, what's something about you that people might not know about?

Emma Rapaport:
Yes, I think one of the things people, you know, they always ask me, you know, what was your journalism degree like? And, frankly, I didn't do one.

All the way through high school and university I really wanted to be a lawyer and sit where you are now. And then, you know, halfway through the degree, something changed. But yeah, I loved my law degree, I love thinking about the law, I love whenever there's a legal aspect of the deal I love thinking and writing about and speaking to lawyers, frankly. So, yeah.

Amelia Morgan:
Nice.

Tony Damian:
Well I think that explains some of the depth of understanding that we see from Emma. Emma, thank you so much for coming on board today, giving your time and sharing those insights, not just into the way that the column works but I also think some very interesting insights into the market as well, so thank you very much.

Emma Rapaport:
Thank you.

Amelia Morgan:
Thanks, Emma.

Amelia Morgan:
Well that's it for this episode, until next time...

Tony Damian:
Stay Ahead of the Deal.