Carlyle, Apollo miss out as Brambles cancels $2b asset sale

"Amid challenging capital markets conditions, and following complex negotiations, offers from bidders for Recall did not reflect its value or offer sufficient certainty," Brambles Chairman Graham Kraehe said in a statement.

The pallet supplier wanted around $2.2 billion, or just below 9.2x EBIDTA, for Recall, which provides storage, retrieval and destruction of digital and physical documents around 80,000 customers in the 20-plus countries it operates in.

Instead of an asset sale, Brambles has gone back to shareholders with a 1 for 20 pro rata share offer at a 10%-plus discount to the last trading prices. If successful, the offering would raise around A$450 million.

The private equity firms that were interested were said to include Apollo Global Management, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Onex Corp. Reports also suggested that Brambles had been talking to a number of strategic buyers, who shied away due to the high price tag.

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• Topics
• Industrials
• Buyouts
• Australasia
• Apollo Global Management
• The Carlyle Group
• Australia