Data Centres Drive Australian GDP, MP1 Jumps +11%, & Initiate on Symal Group
Paper Mandate Market & Portfolio Commentary | 05 June 2026
Fund Status:
Bal Start: $1,151,759
Bought None
Sold: None
Bal End: $1,158,824
Cash: $117,207
Overnight Markets
Overnight markets were mixed with the S&P500 up +0.41% while the Nasdaq slightly fell -0.09%. Small caps were the biggest outperformer as the Russell 2000 rose +1.45%. Brent Oil fell after Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire. In terms of sector performance, Healthcare staged a recovery, jumping +3.16%, followed by Financials +2.68% and Communications +2.12%. The leading laggard was IT (-1.43%) led by a -12% drop in Broadcom. According to Politico, the oil industry warned the US Government that inventory buffers are diminishing, meaning global energy prices could surge. ASX 200 futures are up.
Australian Market
The ASX finished down (-0.70%) in a very soft session, led by Materials (-2.31%) while Healthcare was strangely the champion of the day (+3.54%). However, all eyes were on Megaport today, coming off its trading halt after announcing a capital raise to expand their services, it jumped 20% on open before settling down to +11.26% by EOD. In the construction sector, Monadelphous (MND) had a minor selloff (-0.62%) despite securing a $380m construction contract with CS Energy for the Brigalow Peaking Power Plant. This is following the similarly large contract SRG secured not long ago. With energy security being a key concern at the moment, infrastructure companies are seeing increased demand for their services. In other news, the ABS released our March quarter accounts. GDP grew 0.3% in the quarter, 2.5% you. This missed market expectations in both instances. According to Westpac, 75% of the growth came from data centre construction.
Portfolio Commentary
MP1 was the star of the portfolio today, jumping +11.26%. We trimmed the position once again and recycled the capital into BVS (+2.17%) and initiated on SYL (Symal Group). It was a bit of a mixed day, not all technology positions were up, similar to gold names. OBM (-3.76%) and C79 (-4.18%) continue to disappoint while PC2 ticks up in defiance (+0.80%). Meanwhile CCL (+1.64%) is our quiet achiever.
Investment Activity
Initiate on Symal Group (SYL):
Symal is a diversified vertically integrated civil construction and engineering business. The company operates across various areas of construction to diversify their revenue mix and insulates them from single sector cyclicality. Revenue grew 20.7% in its recent financials, with a $1.64bn work-in-hand pipeline.
Business units include:
Symal, the core civil contracting arm.
Unyte, the fleet and equipment logistics. They lease the assets as well as use them for their own projects.
Sycle, Sells materials by recycling construction and demolition waste.
Wamarra (49% owned), An Aboriginal-owned and operated civil contractor for minor civil works.
Searo, newly acquired, specializing in electrical, energy transmission and storage.
From a valuation perspective, the stock trades at an EV/EBITDA multiple of 7.1x and a P/E multiple of 13.2x. For reference MND trades on 25x earnings. This is a significant discount to peers. EBITDA margins are ~10% which is higher than both MND and SHA. Morningstar quant screen also indicates SYL is undervalued, with a Fair Value price of $3.
Disclaimer: This is a paper portfolio. Content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research.