Icon Group shortlists bidders EQT and Morrison & Co in final field

Icon Group CEO Mark Middleton with a Novalis Truebeam linear accelerator used for radiosurgery. Picture: Alan Barber

Private-equity firm EQT is believed to have been shortlisted in the competition to buy the country’s largest cancer-care provider Icon Group. Also thought to have been gunning hard for the $2bn business and in the final line-up is Morrison & Co.

Parties interested in buying the operation were understood
to have been shortlisted last week after bids were due on September 7.

Another party that had earlier been in the mix was European buyout fund Permira, but it is believed it is now out of the race.

Baring Private Equity Asia had also been a contender, as had Brookfield. EQT is advised by Morgan Stanley, while Morrison & Co, which is understood to have been circling the business since the start of the year, has been working with Royal Bank of Canada.

Looking early on had also been Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and Canadian funds OMERS and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Working on the sales process has been Goldman Sachs and Jefferies.

Icon generates about $160m in annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

The business was sold by Quadrant Private Equity in 2017 to a consortium including Queensland Investment Corporation, Goldman Sachs Private Equity and China’s Pagoda Investments for $1.2bn.

It has 30 cancer-care centres across Australia, delivering a mix of radiation therapy, chemotherapy and blood-disorder treatments.

The understanding is that annual EBITDA of the business has doubled since it was purchased in 2017, when it was making about $80m.

Last year Morrison, with the fund it manages, Infratil, paid a bullish $735m for Quadrant Private Equity’s Qscan Radiology Clinics business.

EQT raised €15.6bn ($25bn) for its latest fund in April, the largest amount ever raised for a European private equity fund.