The majority owners of Nine Entertainment of Australia, namely US hedge funds Apollo Global and Oaktree Capital, have appointed several banks to oversee the initial public offering of the company. The IPO of Nine Entertainment would be managed by UBS, Morgan Stanley and the Macquarie Group, according to the Australian Financial Review on Sunday.
The Australian television broadcast firm had considered to sell between AUD500 million or AUD1 billion worth of shares. The company had projected its value to be close to AUD3 billion according to the newspaper who did not cite their sources.
Both Oaktree and Apollo are former creditors of the media conglomerate and to pay off the debt, they accepted 95.5% stake last January under a US$3.6 billion recapitalization program. The program was designed to slash the firm's debt load and avoid falling into receivership.
The possible IPO is expected to be done by either late 2013 or early 2014. Previously, CVC, its 1% owner, had planned to undertake an IPO worth around AUD5 billion.
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