Amadeus, the GDS and IT solutions company, is about to select the final offers from the four potential purchasers amid increasing speculation that the Madrid-based company will soon be sold.
The four candidates in the running, selected by Amadeus's major shareholders, are: BC Partners, Cinven, Citigroup Venture Capital of the US, which owns rival GDS Worldspan and Carlyle with Citigroup Venture Capital of Europe.
Their final offers for the leveraged buy out (LBO) were expected by the beginning of this year.
One report said that these bids were already in and Amadeus was now deciding which bidder to work with to hammer out a firm offer.
But Amadeus had said there is no timetable for the process and declined to comment on what it said was market speculation.
Analysts have put the price of the company at around 3-4m which is around 7 to 8 a share.
Amadeus is one of the major GDSs in Europe and Air France, Lufthansa and Iberia are among its major shareholders. The first has indicated that it plans to hold onto to its shares but Iberia executives have indicated they would like a quick sale.
Apart from the GDS, Amadeus also had an IT solution company e-travel and owns the online agency Opodo.