MELBOURNE, March 7 (Reuters) - Private equity owned Nine Entertainment has sold its 49.1 percent stake in carsales.com for just under A$562 million to cut debt, easing the need for an initial public offering this year, two newspapers reported on Monday.
Private equity firm CVC Asia Pacific sold the stake to UBS at A$4.92 a share, a 6 percent discount to carsales.com's last trade, and UBS placed it to institutions on Saturday, The Australian and Australian Financial Review said without naming their sources.
CVC had been preparing to float Nine Entertainment Co this year in a deal potentially worth $5 billion, but a sluggish share market and a slower than expected recovery in advertising markets have spurred it to put off an IPO, The Australian said.
'Conditions now aren't looking like they were last November,' The Australian quoted a source familiar with CVC's strategy saying.
'And selling down carsales now takes some of the pressure off anyway.'
CVC appointed Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and UBS to advise on the possible IPO of Nine Entertainment, a source told Reuters in January, for what could have been the biggest float in Australia since Telstra Corp in 1997.
CVC executives were not immediately available for comment.
Nine owns free-to-air TV broadcaster Nine Network and Australia's largest magazine publisher ACP. ($1 = 0.986 Australian Dollars)
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Balazs Koranyi) Keywords: CVC AUSTRALIA/STAKE (Sonali.Paul@thomsonreuters.com) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
Private equity firm CVC Asia Pacific sold the stake to UBS at A$4.92 a share, a 6 percent discount to carsales.com's last trade, and UBS placed it to institutions on Saturday, The Australian and Australian Financial Review said without naming their sources.
CVC had been preparing to float Nine Entertainment Co this year in a deal potentially worth $5 billion, but a sluggish share market and a slower than expected recovery in advertising markets have spurred it to put off an IPO, The Australian said.
'Conditions now aren't looking like they were last November,' The Australian quoted a source familiar with CVC's strategy saying.
'And selling down carsales now takes some of the pressure off anyway.'
CVC appointed Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and UBS to advise on the possible IPO of Nine Entertainment, a source told Reuters in January, for what could have been the biggest float in Australia since Telstra Corp in 1997.
CVC executives were not immediately available for comment.
Nine owns free-to-air TV broadcaster Nine Network and Australia's largest magazine publisher ACP. ($1 = 0.986 Australian Dollars)
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Balazs Koranyi) Keywords: CVC AUSTRALIA/STAKE (Sonali.Paul@thomsonreuters.com) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.