KKR, Providence battle for Australia’s NextGen – report
KKR is said to have joined Providence Equity Partners and TPG Telecom in the bidding for NextGen, the fibre-optics business being sold by Australian contractor Leighton Holdings.
KKR's participation was reported by Reuters, which also cited a source familiar with the process as saying the business could fetch as much as A$870 million ($918 million).
Providence Equity, which advanced to the second stage of bidding last week, has not done an Australian deal since its July 2010 buyout of private education provider Study Group from CHAMP Private Equity for $660 million.
Leighton appointed Macquarie to sell non-core assets Nextgen, data center designer-operator Metronode and cloud services provider Infoplex in September in order to pay down debt. The company has $295 million of debt maturing in July 2014.
Interest in NextGen comes at a time when it has been recording strong growth in its core earnings. EBITDA has more than quadrupled since 2009, with the business contributing to more than 10% of Leighton's 2011 earnings.
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