Sale on cards for owner of Ticketek

The owner of trans-Tasman event ticketing firm Ticketek has emerged as a key chess piece in a fresh round of deal-making involving Australia’s biggest media companies and global buyout funds.

The chief executive of Ticketek parent company TEG Group, Geoff Jones, confirmed that TEG could still be sold after an attempt by its private-equity owner to offload it last year stalled.

‘‘The business is going great; we are talking to a number of people about a variety of things,’’ he said.

Affinity Equity Partners spent A$640 million to acquire Ticketek and other events assets from Nine Entertainment Co in 2015.

Since then, the Asian privateequity firm beefed up the business, now known as TEG, through a series of acquisitions, and by expanding into data and analytics products, which it sells to agencies and advertisers.

In 2016, TEG acquired one of Australia’s biggest concert promoters, Dainty Group. It also has assets throughout Southeast Asia, and now describes itself as the ‘‘leading ticketing, live entertainment and data analytics business’’ in the region.

Last year, Affinity engaged Goldman Sachs to sell TEG, with a host of other buyout firms including Hong Kong-based PAG and TPG Capital, as well as trade buyers such as eBay, linked with the business in a A$1b-plus sale. But a deal failed to transpire.

TEG also remains in the hunt for the events business being sold by Nine Entertainment following its merger with Fairfax Media last year, industry sources said.

Nine also owns New Zealand media company Stuff Ltd, the publisher of this masthead.

Asked whether TEG was interested in the Fairfax events business being sold by Nine, Jones would not rule it out. ‘‘We are still looking all the time for acquisition opportunities.’’ –Sydney Morning Herald