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JP Morgan Partners leads private equity consortium to acquire ABB for over $1bn18/08/2003. Source: AltAssets. 
 A private equity consortium led by JP Morgan Partners is close to acquiring Swiss engineering company ABB's oil, gas and petroleum group for over $1bn.
The sale forms part of ABB's strategy to shed its burgeoning debt load by divesting itself of non-core assets, according to The Wall Street Journal. Other private equity firms backing the deal include Candover and 3i Group.
The transaction is crucial to ABB's turnaround plans after it narrowly avoided insolvency last year. The company is racing to sell assets in order to repay an emergency $1.5bn secured liquidity loan and cut its debt mountain by $6.5bn by the end of 2003.
The gradual liberalisation of the European energy markets is gathering pace, creating a growing number of opportunities for private equity firms to invest in the sector. One example of this can be found with a number of private equity firms, including CVC, which are currently taking on UK electricity network operators in a bid to acquire a large slice of Britain's gas network.
In addition, 4D Global Energy is currently raising the first ever European private equity fund focusing exclusively on oil and gas companies in Europe. The fund is targeting $150m and reached a first close of $60m in February.
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