EQT Explores $2.5 Billion Sale of Direct ChassisLink

(Bloomberg) -- EQT Partners AB, the Swedish investment firm, is exploring the sale of Direct ChassisLink Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

EQT is working with an adviser on the sale of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company, which could fetch more than $2.5 billion, including debt, said one of the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public.

Representatives for EQT and Direct ChassisLink declined to comment.

The company, which does business as DCLI, provides chassis leasing and other services to shipping companies, railroads, terminal operators, logistics firms and other transportation-related companies. Chassis are supporting frames used to transport containers and other items.

DCLI was formed in 1988 as a division of Maersk Inc., a unit of AP Moller-Maersk, which sold the company to Littlejohn & Co. in 2012. Littlejohn sold it to EQT four years later.

DCLI acquired TRAC Intermodal’s chassis fleet last year, boosting its holdings to more than 216,000 chassis, according to a statement at the time.

Other infrastructure investors in the chassis market include I Squared Capital, which owns American Intermodal Management.

EQT, the largest buyout firm in the Nordic region, is considering an initial public offering and other measures to strengthen its balance sheet, a person familiar with the matter said in September.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks, Daniel Taub

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