Last stop for Ventura’s $1b sale; binding bids in

afr.com:

It’s down to the short strokes at family-owned bus operator Ventura Group’s $1 billion auction.

Andrew Cornwall, owner of Ventura Bus Company at their Dandenong depot.  Josh Robenstone

Street Talk understands sell-side adviser Goldman Sachs collected binding offers on Friday and is expected to select a preferred bidder as early as next week.

Sources said Singapore-listed Keppel Infrastructure Holdings and Spanish trade player Mobility ADO were the only suitors to lob final bids for Ventura, which drew a big crowd of tyre kickers at the start of the auction.

While a preferred bidder was yet to be anointed, it is understood Flagstaff Partners-advised Keppel has its nose in front. Should it succeed, it would add the Victorian bus group to its $3 billion listed vehicle, which also houses local chemicals business Ixom.

Rival bidder, Mobility ADO, lost out to OPTrust’s Kinetic at both Queensland’s Transit Australia Group (TAG) in 2019 and Next Capital’s NZ Bus last year. For its tilt at Ventura, Mobility ADO has hired Sydney corporate adviser Origin Capital Group for help with diligence and bid preparations.

Ventura, which makes about $300 million revenue and $80 million EBITDA annually, earlier caught the attention of trade players Kinetic and ComfortDelGro, among others. ComfortDelGro tabled a joint bid with Pacific Equity Partners; however, the pairing was not shortlisted through to the second stage of the auction.

It would be interesting to see what price tag the winning bidder places on Ventura. While the business has a market leading position in Victoria and has grown consistently, prospective acquirers had trouble pricing its earnings risk due to government contracting changes announced earlier this year.

Ventura has