Brookfield and Blackstone eyeing off Aveo, plus sales results next week

The Australian’s Dataroom section is reporting the private equity firms are among the parties looking to acquire the village operator after first round bids through Bank of America Merrill Lynch closed last week. As we covered here, there was expectation that Aveo’s largest shareholder the Malaysian-owned Mulpha, which owns 24.4% of its shares, could make a play for the full company which is valued at $970 million. However, the operator told the market last November that it had attracted interest from a “significant number of parties” from Asia, North America and Australia. An independent board committee has been appointed to assess the offers and an update is expected at the company’s half-yearly results next Wednesday, which will include new and existing village sales results. Watch this space.