Triton Container International Ltd., which is owned by the wealthy Pritzker family, is expected to disclose as early as Thursday its sale to private-equity firms Warburg Pincus LLC and Vestar Capital Partners for about $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
Talks are ongoing and details are still being finalized, these people added. Including debt and cash, a sale would value Triton at about $3.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
The sale of Hamilton, Bermuda-based Triton, a shipping-container leasing company, is part of plans by Chicago’s Pritzker family to divest of family holdings this year.
The Pritzkers, who took the Hyatt Hotels Corp. hotel chain public in 2009, are among the wealthiest U.S. families, controlling a business empire founded by Nicholas J. Pritzker more than a century ago.
Following the 1999 death of patriarch Jay Pritzker, family members squabbled over the running of the business. That led to a 2001 agreement to break up the empire–then valued at about $15 billion–over the following decade. Prior asset sales have raised more than $12 billion.
Triton is being advised by Bank of America Corp.’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Nomura Holdings Inc.’s Nomura Group, Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks Inc. are advising and providing financing to the private-equity firms.
Founded in 1980, Triton operates a global fleet of containers that it says is one of the youngest fleets in the industry.
The company’s engineers design and supervise the construction of its containers, which are made of steel or aluminum and can be leased for one-way trips or on a longer-term basis.
