Pacific Equity Partners is preparing an indicative bid for up-for-sale pharmaceuticals group iNova.
Street Talk can reveal Australia's biggest private equity firm lines up as one of the leading contenders running the numbers on the $1 billion-odd drugmaker.
PEP is in the process of firming up investment banking advisers and is expected to make formal appointments should it make it through to the second and final stage.
Street Talk revealed in September that iNova's US owner, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, had appointed Goldman Sachs to sell the business.
The teaser document was sent earlier this month and has created plenty of interest among private equity firms which have made good returns from the healthcare sector in the past.
London-listed pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline is also understood to be considering the asset.
When sponsors Archer Capital and Ironbridge bought iNova in November 2006, Glaxo was among the losing bidders. Archer and Ironbridge then sold it to Valeant in 2011 for an upfront payment of $625 million and then some milestone payments worth another $75 million.
Elsewhere, soaring coal prices have put some life into Bathurst Resources shares lately, and the Kiwi miner could be about to make its own luck, by purchasing some of the assets that were previously owned by fellow Kiwi miner Solid Energy.
State-owned Solid went into administration in August, after it emerged the company's business model was not as solid as the name would suggest.
Among a range of assets, Solid had some coking coal assets on the west coast of New Zealand (where the beaches are black) and thermal coal assets on the east coast (white beaches).
That has created a synergistic opportunity for Bathurst, which also has coking coal on the west coast and thermal on the east coast.
Goldman Sachs has the task of selling Solid, and Bathurst is expected to emerge as the buyer within two weeks.
