Here are 5 ASX Stocks That Should Be Merged or Be Acquired, and Why the Logic Is Compelling

Despite the dour state of the markets right now, it could be time for certain ASX stocks that should be merged or be acquired to go ahead. With private equity sitting on nearly USD$440bn in uncommitted capital, a more permissive regulatory environment for smaller deal-making, and a wave of ASX small and mid-caps trading at stark discounts to their intrinsic value, 2026 is shaping up as a genuine dealmaker’s year. The question isn’t whether consolidation is coming to certain corners of the ASX. It’s why it hasn’t happened already. Here are five companies where we think a merger or acquisition isn’t just sensible, it’s arguably overdue.

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5 ASX Stocks That Should Be Merged or Be Acquired

1. Superloop (ASX:SLC) — Merge with Aussie Broadband

The unfinished business between these two is the most obvious deal on the ASX right now. In February 2024, Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB) lobbed a $467 million scrip-based offer at Superloop, valuing it at $0.95 per share, a 33% premium to its three-month volume-weighted average price at that time. Superloop’s board called it “opportunistic” and “fundamentally undervaluing” the company. They weren’t entirely wrong, but they also weren’t entirely right.

Since then, Superloop has been busy. In February 2026, it acquired Lynham Network (the parent of Lightning Broadband) for $165m, adding around 54,000 lots of FTTP infrastructure across every major state and territory. It is building exactly the kind of network that makes a merger with Aussie Broadband not just appealing, but arguably inevitable. Together, the two companies would control more than one million broadband subscribers and possess a genuinely formidable infrastructure footprint to challenge Telstra and TPG from below.

Australia’s broadband market is brutally margin-competitive at scale. Individually, both companies are spending heavily on customer acquisition and infrastructure and doing so in parallel. The economics of combining that spend and eliminating the duplication are straightforward. So is the strategic logic: a combined entity with 1 million-plus subscribers, Superloop’s FTTP network, and Aussie Broadband’s operational efficiency and customer service reputation would be far better positioned to compete for the enterprise and SMB contracts that carry real margins. The deal didn’t happen on Aussie’s terms in 2024. But at a fair price, it absolutely should.

2. SiteMinder (ASX:SDR) — Target for a Global Travel Tech Giant

SiteMinder is the kind of company that should not be independently listed for much longer. This is not because it is struggling, but because it is too strategically valuable to remain small. The Sydney-based SaaS platform manages hotel room distribution across more than 150 countries, integrating with Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, and hundreds of other channels, while helping hotels optimise pricing and revenue management. Its Annual Recurring Revenue grew 30.6% in FY25 and analysts have set price targets north of $8, implying significant upside from current levels.

The logical acquirers are sitting in plain sight: Booking Holdings, Amadeus IT Group, or Sabre Corporation, all of whom have spent years trying to own more of the hotel technology stack. SiteMinder sits right at the point of maximum leverage in that stack: the channel manager through which most independent and boutique hotels manage their entire room inventory. Whoever owns SiteMinder owns the distribution plumbing for tens of thousands of properties globally.

The company’s international footprint, scalable SaaS model, and high customer retention rates make it a textbook “tuck-in” acquisition for any of the major global travel technology consolidators. At a current market cap that represents a material discount to equivalent US hospitality SaaS peers, an acquirer could buy SiteMinder at a meaningful premium to market and still be getting a bargain on a revenue multiple basis. The only question is who moves first.

3. ReadyTech (ASX: RDY) — A Private Equity Exit Waiting to Happen

ReadyTech provides cloud-based software to government agencies, local councils, employment service providers, and the justice sector. It is the kind of unglamorous, mission-critical software business that generates sticky recurring revenue, low churn, and steady margin expansion — exactly the profile that strategic acquirers love. Pemba Capital Partners, ReadyTech’s private equity backer, initially acquired the business in 2016 and their fund is now well past a typical 6-to-10-year lifecycle exit horizon.

Pemba holds a substantial stake and Microequities Asset Management holds around 14%. Neither is a natural permanent holder. Both would likely support a clean exit via a corporate acquisition, provided the price reflects the company’s quality. And that quality is real: ReadyTech’s government and justice software is deeply embedded, with switching costs that are genuinely prohibitive. Do government agencies casually rip out their case management software mid-term? Not often.

The strategic acquirer most obviously suited to ReadyTech is TechnologyOne (ASX: TNE), which serves local government, education, and health sectors across Australia and the UK and has a strong track record of acquiring and integrating niche government software assets. An international option would be a player like Tyler Technologies, the dominant US government software company, which has been actively scouting for entry points into the Australian public sector. For Pemba’s investors, a deal at a meaningful premium to market would represent an elegant exit from a well-run asset. For a strategic acquirer, it would represent instant access to entrenched government relationships that would otherwise take years to build.

4. Azumah Resources (ASX:AZY) — Absorbed into the Telfer Ecosystem

This is a deal with a specific and practical logic. Azumah Resources holds gold assets in north-west Ghana, a region with a long mining history and established infrastructure. The project is development-ready and its economics are well understood. On its own, Azumah remains capital-constrained and unable to advance the project to production without either a significant equity raise or a partner.

Enter Greatland Resources (ASX:GGP), the new owner of the Telfer mine and processing complex in Western Australia. Greatland inherited an underutilised processing facility from Newmont, one capable of handling more gold than Telfer’s own declining ore body can currently supply. Acquiring Azumah would provide Greatland with additional feed material and, more importantly, a development-stage asset in West Africa that complements the company’s ambition to become a diversified mid-tier gold producer. Azumah’s register is relatively open, making a scrip-based acquisition straightforward, and neither party is large enough for the deal to attract meaningful regulatory scrutiny.

For Azumah shareholders, the logic is even simpler: years of development capital requirements and the challenge of building a standalone mine in West Africa are removed, replaced by the backing of an established producer with a processing footprint. The deal makes too much sense to ignore for much longer.

5. Starpharma (ASX:SPL) — Big Pharma’s Window Is Now

Starpharma is perhaps the most quietly compelling acquisition target on the entire ASX. The Melbourne-based biotech has spent two decades developing its proprietary dendrimer platform consisting of nanoscale polymer molecules that dramatically improve how drugs are delivered in the body. It also has a pipeline of ten drug delivery agents across six targets, almost all of them funded by global pharmaceutical partners rather than by Starpharma itself. Genentech and a string of other licensed partners are funding the bulk of the development work, paying Starpharma fees for the service.

That model matters enormously to a potential acquirer. Starpharma is not a speculative bet on a single drug candidate; it is a royalty and licensing machine with multiple shots on goal. And the timing is acute. Big Pharma is currently staring down a “patent cliff” between 2026 and 2028: a wave of blockbuster drug patents expiring simultaneously, with few large internal pipeline assets ready to fill the revenue gap. The sector is actively hunting for drug delivery technology platforms that can be applied across multiple existing compounds to extend patent life, improve clinical profiles, and justify line-extension pricing.

Starpharma’s dendrimer technology does exactly that. Any major pharmaceutical company that acquires Starpharma is not just buying a pipeline, it is buying a platform applicable to its entire existing drug portfolio. With a market cap sitting well below what its partner relationships and pipeline should imply, the company looks significantly undervalued on both an absolute and peer-comparison basis. The only mystery is how much longer it remains independent.

The Bigger Picture

The five cases above are different in sector, size, and structure, but they share a common thread: each company is worth more as part of something larger than it is on its own. That is not a criticism, it is simply the economics of scale, platform leverage, and strategic fit playing out in the open. In each case, identifiable acquirers exist, valuations are reasonable, and the industrial logic is clear. All that is missing is the catalyst. In a market where M&A is accelerating and capital is actively being deployed, waiting may prove costly for bidders and target shareholders alike.