KEY POINTS:
ABC Learning Centres' rival Kidicorp is considering buying the failed Australian childcare company's New Zealand operations.
ABC Learning Centres New Zealand called for expressions of interest from potential buyers last month after its Australian parent company went into receivership.
ABC operates 127 centres in New Zealand. Offers for
its New Zealand assets may land as early as next week from private equity firms and childcare centre operators, the Australian Financial Review reported.
The private equity firms, including Ironbridge Capital and Gresham Private Equity, were gearing to make bids, and the assets were also being eyed by ABC Learning's rivals Kidicorp and Lollipops Educare.
Kidicorp founder and chief executive Wayne Wright told the Herald he had expressed an interest in making a bid and had been told that an information memorandum would be available at the end of the month.
"The receivers have indicated that they'd really only want to sell them all to one person," Wright said.
"I don't know that we'd want that many centres but it's not inconceivable that we'd perhaps buy them all and then sell some of them off.
"Once again it's too premature to really know until we see what it is they've got to sell."
The childcare sector was getting tougher because of the recession, with some people having to withdraw children after losing a job or because it was discretionary spending they could no longer afford, he said.
Kidicorp expanded by about 25 per cent last year and had a little more than 5000 places at between 90 and 100 centres, Wright said.
"I guess the appeal to us [of ABC's centres] would be the opportunity to rationalise it and they've bought a lot of centres over the last two or three years that I would have thought were marginal in the first place," he said.
"So [it] just gives you an opportunity to rationalise the sector a bit perhaps and close down some of the ones [where] there's too many in an area or they need serious upgrades to meet regulatory requirements or those sorts of things."
Lollipops chief executive Mark Finlay said he was teaming up with a private equity company to bid for the entire operation.
ABC New Zealand also owns the College of Early Childhood Education in Christchurch, and concerns have been expressed over what will happen to the teachers in training with ABC and at the college if there is a sharp reduction in the jobs available in the industry.
ABC Learning's New Zealand business, which has 8 per cent of the national market, is not in receivership, but receivers for the failed childcare centre operator in Australia this week launched the sale of 241 centres there that have been kept going with Australian government support.
Stephen Parbery, of corporate recovery firm PPB, said proposals would have to be viable and bidders' capacity to deliver high-quality childcare would also be considered.
SELLING NOW
* Australian childcare firm ABC went into receivership last year.
* ABC has about 1000 centres in Australia and 127 in New Zealand.
* 241 of the Australian centres, which had been deemed unviable, were put up for sale on Wednesday.
* ABC New Zealand, which is not in receivership, has called for expressions of interest in its centres.
