(Bloomberg) — Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. is in talks with KKR & Co.-backed MYOB Group Ltd. about an acquisition of the Australian accounting software business.
ANZ and KKR “are yet to reach agreement in relation to the acquisition and there is no certainty it will proceed,” the bank said in a statement Wednesday.
That followed an earlier Bloomberg News report that the parties were in advanced discussions for a deal that could value MYOB at more than A$4 billion ($2.7 billion).
An acquisition could give the smallest of Australia’s so-called big four lenders a deeper relationship with hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the country where MYOB has been a ubiquitous bookkeeping tool.
Customer growth has become a fresh focus for Australia’s major banks and their shareholders.
“MYOB is one of Australia’s leading providers of business management, financial and accounting solutions for SMEs, Enterprise and Accounting Practice customers,” the Australian bank said in the statement.
A representative for KKR declined to comment.
Shares of ANZ fell as much as 1.1% in Sydney trading as of 11:29 a.m. local time. KKR slipped 1.3% in New York on Tuesday.
ANZ has been building up on its balance sheet, partly because the bank is keen to capture new opportunities, its Chief Executive Officer Shayne Elliott said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in May.
Last week, ANZ announced it would sell its A$715 million investment lending portfolio to Bendigo & Adelaide Bank Ltd., while Bloomberg also reported the bank has started exploring a sale of its stake in PT Bank Pan Indonesia.
Founded in 1991, MYOB provides accounting and management systems with clients in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and other Asian countries, its website shows.
It serves more than 1 million customers and over 10,000 accounting professionals in Asia Pacific. In 2019, KKR took MYOB private in a deal that valued the Australian firm at about A$2 billion.
(Updates ANZ shares in fifth paragraph.)
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