PRE-MARKET AUSTRALIAN, JAPANESE AND SOUTH KOREAN STOCKS NEWS: ANZ (ANZ AT) is reportedly considering a potential takeover of Judo Capital, Hyundai Motor (005380 KS) unionised workers voted to accept this year’s wage agreement

ANZ Group (ANZ AT) - Co. is reportedly considering a potential takeover of Judo Capital as the bank seeks to expand its business banking operations. (The Australian)

CSL (CSL AT) - Co. entered an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to lower medicine costs in the U.S., with Medicaid to access medicines at prices comparable to other developed countries and newly launched therapies to be similarly priced for all U.S. payers. (Dow Jones Newsplus)

Macmahon Holdings (MAH AT) - Co. signed a roughly AUD 38mln contract with the Central Tanami Project joint venture for an exploration decline scheduled to take 14 months to complete. (Dow Jones Newsplus)

Qantas Airways (QAN AT) - Around 650 of the Co.’s ground crew have voted in favour of industrial action over pay and job security, potentially disrupting passenger travel. (The Australian)

Ramsay Health Care (RHC AT) - Co. completed the AUD 251mln acquisition of private hospital operator National Capital from Healthscope, funded from existing debt facilities. (Dow Jones Newsplus)

Star Entertainment Group (SGR AT) - Co. reportedly ignored internal warnings to address a safety flaw on a rooftop deck at its Brisbane casino precinct before a young worker fell to her death in early June. (AFR)

Telix Pharmaceuticals (TLX AT) - Co. appointed David Gill as Chair of the Board, effective immediately. (Company Announcement)

WiseTech Global (WTC AT) - Co. appointed former Seven West Media CEO and CFO Jeff Howard as Chief Financial Officer, with interim CFO Caroline Pham to support the transition. (Dow Jones Newsplus)

Property

Sydney house prices are reportedly falling at a pace that could result in an 18% annual decline, the largest annual fall in 40 years, with data centres also expected to weigh on the economy. (The Australian)

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (8306 JT) - Co. will partner with BlackRock and a Morgan Stanley asset management unit to create a mechanism to raise funds from overseas institutional investors for leveraged buyouts and other M&A involving Japanese companies. (Nikkei)

Mitsui & Co. (8031 JT) - Co. CEO Kenichi Hori said the trading house aims to raise net profit through greater cross-segment synergies aided by AI, while positioning itself as a steward of scarce resources for downstream industries. (Nikkei)

Sony Group (6758 JT) - Co.’s semiconductor unit will develop an AI model with Saudi Aramco for plant maintenance, using image sensors to identify potential problems before they occur. (Nikkei)

U-Next Holdings (9418 JT) - Co. entered a comprehensive strategic alliance with NBCUniversal for the Japan market, with plans to integrate NBCUniversal content on U-Next from October. (Nikkei)

Logistics

GLP Japan raised JPY 600bln to establish a fund investing in 30-40 large logistics centres in Japan, supported by overseas investor demand for the country’s logistics infrastructure. (Nikkei)

Other News

Japan’s government ministries are seeking tax incentives for government bond purchases, growth investment and wage increases as part of FY27 tax code changes, while efforts to eliminate ineffective tax breaks have made limited progress. (Nikkei)

Hyundai Motor (005380 KS) - Co.’s unionised workers voted to accept this year’s wage agreement, including a KRW 100k increase in monthly base pay. (Yonhap)

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) - Co.’s memory unit has reportedly allocated around 70% of production capacity through 2031 under long-term agreements, with Nvidia, Alphabet and Microsoft among its main partners. (Newswires)

The dominant single-name item is ANZ's reported interest in Judo Capital, and the pattern for big-bank approaches to small specialist lenders is well established: the strategic logic is buying a business-banking franchise rather than building one, the target's board has historically rejected opening approaches as undervaluing the book, and the sequence runs from media leak to formal response to either revised terms or withdrawal. Regulatory scrutiny is a live consideration, since competition authorities in concentrated banking markets have previously pushed back on large players absorbing challengers. The Hyundai wage settlement follows the Korean norm, where annual union negotiations have periodically escalated to strikes before ratification, so acceptance removes a recurring overhang on production guidance rather than adding one. The MUFG tie-up with BlackRock and a Morgan Stanley unit fits a longer-running theme of foreign capital being channelled into Japanese corporate transactions. For a pre-market wrap of this kind, the items that tend to trade are the takeover target and any name with a confirmed corporate action; the rest is colour that rarely survives the first hour.