Infrastructure fund manager Morrison & Co is understood to be closing in on the country’s largest cancer care provider, Icon.
Three suitors were understood to have been short-listed for the $2bn business, up for sale by owners QIC, Goldman Sachs and Pagoda Investments.
Private equity firm EQT was one of the other parties in the final stages of the race, while a third group was also understood to have been shortlisted but has stopped working on a proposal.
Morrison, based in Wellington, has more than $20bn of funds under management on behalf of sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, endowments and other private pools of capital.
It has been acquisitive of late, buying a 49 per cent interest in Telstra’s telecoms towers with the Future Fund, valuing the business at $5.9bn.
Last year Morrison, with the Infratil fund it manages, paid a bullish $735m for Quadrant Private Equity’s Qscan Radiology Clinics business.
Morrison’s clients include the UTA fund, previously managed by Hastings Funds Management, and the New Zealand-listed infrastructure fund Infratil, which it launched in 1994.
Suitors interested in buying Icon are understood to have been shortlisted after bids were due on September 7.
Morrison & Co is advised by JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Canada.
There have been suggestions it has been keen on Icon since the start of this year.
Goldman Sachs and Jefferies are working on the sales process for Icon, which was sold in 2017 for $1.2bn by Quadrant Private Equity.
It has 30 cancer care centres across Australia, delivering a mix of radiation therapy, chemotherapy and blood disorder treatments.
The understanding is that annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of the business have doubled since it was purchased in 2017, when it was making about $80m.
Morrison’s interest in Icon coincides with its plan to sell the 50 per cent stake it owns in the Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria through ICA Partners. A buyer such as ICG, Cbus, Host Plus or Palisade is expected to pay between $800m and $900m for the interest.
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