New Mountain to Explore $3.5 Billion Sale of Equian

(Bloomberg) -- New Mountain Capital is weighing a sale of Equian LLC in a potential deal that could value the health-care payments business at about $3.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The private equity firm has held talks with financial advisers about strategic options for the company that could include a sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. Equian could draw interest from other private equity firms, they said.

A final decision hasn’t been made and New Mountain could decide against pursuing a sale, the people said.

A representative for New Mountain didn’t have an immediate comment. An Equian representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.

New Mountain bought Equian for $225 million in 2015 from Great Point Partners, according to a statement at the time. In conjunction with that deal, New Mountain merged Equian with Trover Solutions Inc., a software and services company that had been owned by Abry Partners.

Indianapolis-based Equian handles more than $500 billion in health-care claims data a year, helping ensure that payments are correctly allocated, according to its website.

The company says it counts 20 of the top 25 health plans in the U.S. as clients. Its services save insurers and the government about $3 billion a year, it said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nabila Ahmed in New York at nahmed54@bloomberg.net;Kiel Porter in Chicago at kporter17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks, Michael Hytha

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